Alice Muriel Williamson was an American-British novelist. She was born in America, the daughter of Mark Livingston of Poughkeepsie. She came to England when young. In 1894, soon after arrival in England, she married the magazine editor Charles Norris Williamson (1859-1920), "the first editor to whom she presented an introduction." Many of her books were jointly written with her husband. After her marriage she introduced herself as Mrs. C. N. Williamson. A number of their novels cover the early days of motoring and can also be read as travelogues. Alice apparently said of her husband "Charlie Williamson could do anything in the world except write stories" she said of herself "I can't do anything else." She continued to write after her husband's death in 1920.

Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories. Born in Brooklyn, New York, her early ambition was to write romantic verse, and she corresponded with Ralph Waldo Emerson. When her poetry failed to gain recognition, she produced her first and best-known novel, The Leavenworth Case (1878). She became a bestselling author, eventually publishing about 40 books. Her other works include A Strange Disappearance (1880), The Affair Next Door (1897), The Circular Study (1902), The Filigree Ball (1903), The Millionaire Baby (1905), The House in the Mist (1905), The Woman in the Alcove (1906), The House of the Whispering Pines (1910), Initials Only (1912) and The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow (1917).