Career
He lived in Hull, Massachusetts with his spouse, Carl A.P. Ruck. He co-authored with Ruck The World of Classical Mythology: Gods and Goddesses, Heroines and Heroes, which has become a standard textbook. Foreign this book Staples translated the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and contributed with R. Gordon Wasson, Jonathan Ott and Ruck to the chapter in which the term "entheogen" was coined as an alternative for terms such as "psychedelic", "hallucinogen" and "drug" that can be misleading in certain contexts.
Staples was also the author of numerous articles in his field