Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was born in 1742 in Oberramstadt, Germany. In 1763 he joined the University of Gottingen where he studied mathematics and the natural sciences and, in 1770 was appointed a professor at the university. In addition to his scientific writings, he wrote Letters from England and a book on Hogarth's etchings. Lichtenberg died in 1799.

R.J. Hollingdale (1930-2001) was born in London and after serving in the RAF became a prominent scholar and biographer of Nietzsche. Among his many translations are Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, The Anti-Christ, and Beyond Good and Evil; A Nietzsche Reader; Goethe's Elective Affinities; Schopenhauer's Essays and Aphorisms; and a selection of Hoffmann's Tales.