A graduate of Exeter University, where he was subsequently awarded a Ph.D. for his thesis on the poetry of the Pleiade, Malcolm Quainton has been Professor of French Studies at Lancaster University since 1989. Author of Ronsard’s Ordered Chaos (1980) and of a book on the Religious War poetry of Agrippa d’Aubigne (1990), he has also co-edited two collections of essays and published numerous articles and chapters in books on French Renaissance poetry and culture. He is currently editing the comedies of Jean-Antoine de Ball, having published a critical edition of his selected poetry in 1970.
Elizabeth Vinestock won an Exhibition to read Modern and Mediaeval Languages at Girton College, Cambridge, and subsequently studied at Lancaster University, gaining an MA with a dissertation on Agrippa d’Aubigne and a Ph.D. for research into the poetry of Ronsard’s contemporary, Jean-Antoine de Baif, She has published a number of articles on this poet and is currently engaged in writing a book on his Poemes. She teaches French at Lancaster University.