Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825, he returned to Salem, where he wrote historical sketches and allegorical tales, as well as a novel, Fanshawe, which was published anonymously in 1828. Hawthorne's first book of stories, Twice-Told Tales, appeared in 1837. His marriage to Sophia Peabody, in 1842, led to a move to Concord, after which he wrote the stories gathered in Mosses from an Old Manse and The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales, and the novels The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and The Blithedale Romance. During these same years Hawthorne also spent time in the Berkshires (the scene of Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny), where he struck up a friendship with his young admirer Herman Melville. Hawthorne's last novel, The Marble Faun, was published in 1860.

Paul Auster (1947-2024) was the author of many works of fiction and nonfiction. His notable works include The New York Trilogy, The Book of Illusions, Sunset Park, and Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane.