Gerald Basil Edwards (1899–1976) was born in Vale Parish on the Channel Island of Guernsey and lived there until joining the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry in 1917. He attended Bristol University for several years, though he does not seem to have graduated. By the late 1920s Edwards was living in London, where he taught literature and drama at a number of institutions, including Toynbee Hall, and became acquainted with the writers J.S. Collis, Stephen Potter, and Middleton Murry, who recruited him to write for The Adelphi. All three considered Edwards a genius and expected him to become a new D.H. Lawrence. In 1928, Edwards was commissioned by Jonathan  Cape to write a biography of Lawrence, with whom he briefly corresponded. Lawrence then died and the biography was never completed. Although he continued to write, Edwards published very little from that point on, eventually earning his living as a civil servant. He retired to Dorset, where in 1972 he met the art student Edward Chaney, who encouraged him to complete The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. Edwards bequeathed the typescript to his young friend, who eventually succeeded in having it published. It was hailed as a great novel in England and America and has since been published in French and Italian.

John Fowles (1926–2005) was a critic and writer best known for the novels The Collector, The Magus, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman.