Robert Eisler was born in Vienna in 1882 and studied at the University of Vienna for a doctorate in economics. He followed an academic career in Austria, Germany and France, writing on a wide range of subjects including religion, mythology, art history, history of science, astrology, currency, monetary theory and politics. During World War I he served in the Austro-Hungrarian army and in the mid-1920s spent a period as deputy chief of the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation in Paris. Following the Anschluss in March 1938 Eisler was imprisoned for 15 months in Dachau and Buchenwald. He spent the last ten years of his life in England, lecturing in Oxford and London and continuing to publish. He died in 1949.

Rachel Elfreda Fowler (1872-1951) was a literary scholar and lectured on art and history at the University of Oxford. She regularly brought together émigré intellectuals and was deeply engaged in Oxford cultural life.