The material here is a distillation of the information available in standard biographical references and in biographies of individual authors. It is intended to serve as a brief guide to the status and occupations of the popular authors, not as a study of their lives or a bibliography of the works written about them.

In column 5 I have listed the standard source(s) available for a brief study of each author. An asterisk (*) indicates that a biography of the author exists, either in his collected works or in an individual study. An abbreviated title, other than those listed below, refers to a work referred to in the notes.

The DNB is generally reliable when it deals with the university training and professional careers of the authors it treats (with the exception of the article on John Norden, which has been proved wrong by A.W. Pollard); but it is not altogether trustworthy about family backgrounds, since the scholars who compiled it tended to attribute gentle connections to any author of note if it was possible to do so. It is always wise to consult modern biographies when they exist, or to consult the Alumni Oxonienses and the Alumni Cantabrigienses on matters of background.