– Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (29 September 1810 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of Victorian society, including the very poor, and are of interest to social historians as well as lovers of literature. Her first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848. Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë, published in 1857, was the first biography of Brontë.
– Eleanor Emily Hodgman Porter was an American novelist, most known for Pollyanna (1913) and Just David (1916). Eleanor Emily Hodgman was born in Littleton, New Hampshire, on December 19, 1868, the daughter of Llewella French and Francis Fletcher Hodgman. She was trained as a singer, attending the New England Conservatory for several years. In 1892 she married John Lyman Porter and relocated to Massachusetts, after which she began writing and publishing her short stories and, later, novels. She died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 21, 1920, and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery.