Francis Marion Crawford was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird and fantastical stories.

Samuel Cutler Ward, was an American poet, politician, author, and gourmet, and in the years after the Civil War he was widely known as the "King of the Lobby." He combined delicious food, fine wines, and good conversation to create a new type of lobbying in Washington, DC — social lobbying — over which he reigned for more than a decade.