Francis Parkman was born in Boston in 1823 and is best known for his masterly seven-volume history, France and England in North America, and for the annual prize awarded by the Society of American Historians in his honor. He died in 1893.

David Levin was the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia. His books on American historical writing included History as Romatic Art: Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, and Parkman; In Defense of Historical Literature; and Cotton Mather: The Young Life of the Lord’s Remembrancer, 1663–1703. He was the editor of Francis Parkman’s masterpiece, France and England in North America.