George Sand is the pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (1803–1876). One of the most popular and renowned novelists of the European Romantic movement, she was also a prolific playwright, memoirist, journalist, and literary critic. Several volumes of her private correspondence and journals were published posthumously. Sand is perhaps best known for her pastoral novels set in the rural Berry region of central France, where she spent much of her life.

Henry Harrisse (1829–1910) was a prominent lawyer and historian. Born in Paris, he studied and taught law and philosophy in the United States and acquired U.S. citizenship before returning to France, where he maintained a legal practice representing American clients. Harrisse published several books on cartography and the history of European explorers in the Americas.