David Coward writes widely on the history, literature, and culture of France. A regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, and national newspapers, he won the Scott-Moncrieff Prize for Translation in 1996. He is the author of A History of French Literature (2002), and for Oxford World's Classics has translated and edited works by Dumas, Diderot, Sade, and Beaumarchais.

William Butcher has taught languages and mathematics, notably at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration and the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Jules Verne inédit: Les manuscrits déchiffrés (The Unexpurgated Jules Verne, 2015) and Jules Verne: The Biography (2006 and 2020). He has published many translations and editions, including Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas for Oxford World's Classics.