Jean Ingelow (1820-1897) was a successful English poet and writer, the first child of banker and shipping merchant William Ingelow (1794/5-1855) and his wife Jean (1798/9-1876). Ingelow was educated at home by her mother and aunt. She spent most of her adult life in Kensington, London.

Ingelow penned many poems with a wistful and nostalgic tone, as well as novels and children's stories. Her work was admired by other poets of her era, including Alfred Tennyson and Christina Rossetti. She was a member of the Portfolio Society and knew many other poets of the era, including John Ruskin, Robert Browning, Anna Sewell, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell (1856-1930), known by his penname Mackenzie Bell, was an English poet, editor, and critic of literature. He studied abroad on the European mainland, returning to Great Britain in 1884 and settling in Ealing, London.

Bell corresponded with Ingelow in preparation of an interview and article he was writing about her. He wrote biographies of Christina Rossetti and Charles Whitehead and had several volumes of poetry published, as well as contributing to numerous magazines of his era and the Dictionary of National Biography.