Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes was born on March 25, 1887, in Cambridge, England.

He was a British surgeon, medical historian, humanist, and author. He graduated from Pembroke College, Cambridge (B.A., 1909; M.A., 1913) and the Royal College of Surgeons in London (M.D., 1918). He served as a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War I and then worked as a consultant surgeon, becoming an expert in blood transfusion. He co-founded the London blood transfusion service with P. L. Oliver in 1921, and his book “Blood Transfusion” (1922) was the first textbook on the subject published in Great Britain. Keynes enlisted to be a consulting surgeon to the Royal Air Force during World War II. In 1944, he was promoted to the rank of acting air vice-marshal. He was a pioneer in the surgery of breast cancer, advocating for limited surgery followed by radiation therapy instead of the invasive radical mastectomy. He maintained a passionate interest in English literature. Keynes was a leading authority on the literary and artistic work of William Blake and produced biographies and bibliographies of many English writers. He also collected books, with a personal library of around four thousand books. His autobiography, “The Gates of Memory,” was published in 1981. In 1955, Keynes received a knighthood for services to medicine.

In 1917, he married Margaret Darwin (1890–1974), granddaughter of Charles Darwin. He died on July 5, 1982, in Cambridge, England.

Mona Elaine Adilman was born on May 8, 1924, in Montreal, Quebec.

She was a Jewish-Canadian poet and editor. She received her B.A. from McGill University in 1945. Adilman was committed to social and environmental causes, warning Quebecers against the dangers of pesticides. She created and taught a course on Ecology and Literature at Concordia University and directed a Heritage Group called Save Montreal. She edited an anthology of writings from prison called “Spirits of the Age: Poets of Conscience” (1989). In 1951, Adilman married Dr. Morris Solomon (1922–2002), and they had one daughter, Shelley Solomon. Her daughter established the Mona Elaine Adilman Lectureship on the Environment in her mother's memory. A scholarship called the Mona Elaine Adilman Poetry Prize was established in 1992 in the Department of English at McGill University. The Association for Canadian Jewish Studies annually awards the Mona Elaine Adilman English Fiction and Poetry Award on a Jewish Theme as one of the J.I. Segal Awards. Adilman was the author of several collections of poems, e.g., "Cult of Concrete" (1977), "Piece Work" (1980) and "Candles in the Dark' (1990).

She died on October 5, 1991, in Montreal, Quebec.

Sharon Thesen, also known as Sharon Fawcett, is a Canadian poet, editor, and professor. She was born in Saskatchewan in 1946, but lived and worked predominantly in Vancouver, British Columbia. She earned an MA from Simon Fraser University in 1975. She has published 9 books of poetry, and edited numerous anthologies, including an edition of Phyllis Webb’s poetry in 1980 (The Vision Tree: Selected Poems), drafts of which can be found in the collection. Drafts of Thesen’s books, Artemis Hates Romance (1981), Holding the Pose (1983), Confabulations: Poems for Malcolm Lowry (1984), and The Beginning of the Long Dash (1987) can also be found in this collection. She also taught English and Creative Writing at Capilano College, and as of 2005 has been teaching creative writing at UBC's Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.

Now known as the Natural History Society of Northumbria, the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne was formed on 19 August 1829 to promote and encourage the study of natural history and the protection of wildlife and plantlife in northeast England.