John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald (February 11, 1863 – October 2, 1950) was an American politician and the maternal grandfather of three prominent United States politicians—President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (his namesake) and Senators Robert Francis Kennedy and Edward Moore Kennedy.

Fitzgerald was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Irish immigrants, Thomas Fitzgerald of County Limerick and Rosanna Cox of County Cavan. He was the fourth of twelve children; of his siblings, both sisters died in infancy, as did his eldest brother. Joseph, the ninth brother, had severe brain damage from malaria and barely functioned. Only three survived in good health and after John's mother died when he was sixteen, his father wished for him to become a doctor to help prevent future tragedies of the sort that had marred the Fitzgerald family.

Accordingly, after being educated at Boston Latin School and Boston College, he enrolled at Harvard Medical School for one year, but withdrew following the death of his father in 1885. Fitzgerald later became a clerk at the Customs House in Boston and was active in the local Democratic Party.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, and his most famous, The Great Gatsby. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age.

Both The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night were made into films, and in 1958 his life from 1937–1940 was dramatized in Beloved Infidel.

Born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota to an upper middle class Irish Catholic family, Fitzgerald was named after his famous second cousin, three times removed, Francis Scott Key, but was referred to as "Scott." He was also named after his deceased sister, Louise Scott, one of two sisters who died shortly before his birth. "Well, three months before I was born," he wrote as an adult, "my mother lost her other two children....I think I started then to be a writer.". His parents were Mollie (McQuillan) and Edward Fitzgerald.

John Keats ( /ˈkiːts/; 31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work only having been in publication for four years before his death.

Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his life, his reputation grew after his death, so that by the end of the 19th century he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of later poets and writers. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keats was the most significant literary experience of his life.

The poetry of Keats is characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analyzed in English literature.

John Keats was born on 31 October 1795 to Thomas and Frances Jennings Keats. Keats and his family seemed to have marked his birthday on 29 October, however baptism records give the birth date as the 31st. He was the eldest of four surviving children; George (1797–1841), Thomas (1799–1818) and Frances Mary "Fanny" (1803–1889). Another son was lost in infancy. John was born in central London although there is no clear evidence of the exact location. His father first worked as a hostler at the stables attached to the Swan and Hoop inn, an establishment he later managed and where the growing family lived for some years. Keats believed that he was born at the inn, a birthplace of humble origins, but there is no evidence to support this. The Keats at the Globe pub now occupies the site, a few yards from modern day Moorgate station. He was baptised at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate and sent to a local dame school as a child.

John Edward Masefield, OM, (1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967) was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967. He is remembered as the author of the classic children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, and poems, including "The Everlasting Mercy" and "Sea-Fever".

Masefield was born in Ledbury in Herefordshire, to Caroline and George Masefield, a solicitor. His mother died giving birth to his sister when Masefield was only six, and he went to live with his aunt. His father died soon after following a mental breakdown. After an unhappy education at the King's School in Warwick (now known as Warwick School), where he was a boarder between 1888 and 1891, he left to board the HMS Conway, both to train for a life at sea, and to break his addiction to reading, of which his aunt thought little. He spent several years aboard this ship and found that he could spend much of his time reading and writing. It was aboard the Conway that Masefield's love for story-telling grew. While on the ship, he listened to the stories told about sea lore. He continued to read, and felt that he was to become a writer and story teller himself.