Dr Lara Feigel is a Senior Lecturer in English at King's College London, where her research is centred on the 1930s and the Second World War.

She is the author of Literature, Cinema and Politics, 1930-1945 and the editor (with Alexandra Harris) of Modernism on Sea: Art and Culture at the British Seaside and (with John Sutherland) of the New Selected Journals of Stephen Spender.

She has also written journalistic pieces for various publications, including the Guardian, Prospect and History Today. Lara lives in West Hampstead, London.

Cedric Watts, after service in the Royal Navy, read English at Cambridge University, taking his BA (Class 1), MA and Ph.D. there. He has taught at Sussex University for many years, and is currently Emeritus Professor of English. His publications include poetry, fiction, and 18 critical and scholarly books.

He has edited 34 volumes of material by Shakespeare, Conrad, Cunninghame Graham, Thomas Hardy and others. Edward Said praised Watts as "a man for whom the enjoyment and enrichment of friends and students are the main considerations in what he does".

David Lodge (CBE)'s novels include Changing Places, Small World and Nice Work (shortlisted for the Booker) and, most recently, A Man of Parts. He has also written plays and screenplays, and several books of literary criticism. His works have been translated into more than thirty languages.

He is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Birmingham, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and is a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.