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Having grown up in Kenya and Switzerland, with periods living in Mexico, Zimbabwe, and the United States, Edward Wilson-Lee now lives in Cambridge, where he teaches Renaissance literature and is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.

Virginia Woolf was an English novelist, essayist, short story writer, publisher, critic and member of the Bloomsbury group, as well as being regarded as both a hugely significant modernist and feminist figure. Her most famous works include Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own.

A founding father of the Romantic movement in English poetry, few writers have changed the course of literary history as

Calder Walton is a leading expert among a new generation of intelligence historians. He has published widely on intelligence history, reviewing books for the Times Literary Supplement, and contributing to a number of books on British foreign policy and international relations. For six years, between 2003 and 2009, he was one of the principal researchers on Christopher Andrew’s unprecedented authorised history of MI5. This is his first book.

Fay Weldon (1931 – 2023) overcame hard times and odd jobs as a lone parent, before becoming one of the top advertising copywriters of her generation. She moved into TV drama (writing the pilot episode of the iconic series Upstairs, Downstairs in 1971) then turned to novels – including the Booker-shortlisted Praxis (1978) and the feminist classic The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983). Fay was a Professor of Writing at Bath Spa University and was made a CBE for services to literature.

John ‘Lofty’ Wiseman served for 26 years with the SAS and was their Chief Survival Instructor. He remains the foremost authority on SAS training techniques for civilians. His knowledge, skills and experience are unrivalled and he is deeply respected in survival circles.