Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer and social critic who is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. His major works include: The Pickwick Papers (1836), Oliver Twist (1837-9), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9), A Christmas Carol (1843), Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4), David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1855-7), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1), Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) and the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), as well as other novels, books and short stories. None of his major works has ever gone out of print.

Jo Clifford (formerly known as John Clifford) is an award-winning playwright, translator, poet and performer, who has also worked as a journalist and academic. She was instrumental in establishing the reputation of the Traverse Theatre Company in the 1980s.

She is the author of about eighty plays, many of which have been performed all over the world. They include: Losing Venice, Every One, Faust and The Tree of Knowledge. Her adaptation of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations makes her the first openly transgendered woman playwright to have had a play on in London's West End.