Edward Gordon Craig, son of Ellen Terry, actor, woodcut artist, theatrical director and producer, wrote a number of books on the theatre. He founded a magazine devoted to the theatre, 'The Mask', which ran from 1908 until 1929, and founded the School for the Art of the Theatre in 1913. His highly influential book 'On the Art of the Theatre', was published in 1911. Craig's annotations, in this copy of Brayley's own account of London's theatres, appear to date from about 1920-1922.

The beautiful aquatints are by Daniel Havell who died before they were published. A member of the Havell family of artists and printers, he was father and grandfather of the Roberts Havell, who famously published John James Audubon's 'Birds of America' (1826-1827).

Edward Wedlake Brayley (1773–1854), is most famous for publishing the illustrated 'Beauties of England and Wales' (1801-1816) in 25 volumes, and for a popular ballad called 'The Powder Tax, or, A Puff at the Guinea Pigs'. He died in Soho of the cholera outbreak of 1854, that led to John Snow's groundbreaking epidemiological survey that established that the Broad Street pump was the main source of the deadly infection.