T. G. S. Cain is Emeritus Professor in the Department of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University, UK. His area of expertise is early modern English literature.

Ken Robinson, at the time of the first publication, was Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He is now a psychoanalyst, a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, an Honorary Member of the Polish Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Society, and Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis in Northumbria University.