Nathaniel Tarn, poet and translator, was born in 1928 in Paris. He received degrees from Cambridge (BA, 1948; MA, 1952) and the University of Chicago (MA, 1952; PhD, 1957) and initially worked as an anthropologist, conducting fieldwork in Guatemala and Burma. His first poetry collection, Old Savage / Young City, was published in 1964. He has also published translations of the poetry of Victor Segalen and Pablo Neruda. He was the founder and director of Cape Goliard Press and editor of Cape Editions from 1967-69. He has taught at several American universities; he was professor of comparative literature at Rutgers from 1970 to 1984 and professor emeritus thereafter.

Robert Nye, 1939-2016, was an English writer or poetry, plays, and novels for adults and children. He also worked as an editor and critic for the London Times and the Scotsman. He was born in London in 1939. He left school at the age of 16 with the determination to become a poet and worked odd jobs while writing poetry. In addition to poetry collections, he has written several novels, most notably Falstaff (1976), which won the 1977 Hawthornden Prize and was adapted for the stage. His novels are characterized by bawdy takes on legendary figures such as Merlin (1978), Faust (1980), and Mrs. Shakespeare (1993).