James Munson was Literary Editor of Contemporary Review from 1994 to 2012. Prior to that, he taught history at Oxford University and was for many years a script writer for BBC Television and Radio. He has also written for a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian. He has published widely, including ... Read morea biography of Queen Victoria, and his most recent book (with Richard Mullen) is Smell of the Continent: The British Discover Europe, 1814-1914 (2009), described by A. N. Wilson as 'pure charm'. Margaret Bonfiglioli read English at Oxford. Her particular interest in family letters began with a special study of the Verney Papers under Rachel Trickett. In 2001 she published The Mortdecai ABC: A Bonfiglioli Reader, a collection of the writings of her husband, the thriller writer Kyril Bonfiglioli. She is the daughter of Owen Slater, one of the central correspondents in this collection. In 2008 she began to re-discover the letters that form the basis of this book. Show Less