Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish shoemaker's son. The first of the fairy-tales on which his world-wide fame rests was published in 1835 (things 8).

Hannah Andrassy is a freelance radio producer and writer. Her current work includes Work in Progress - a series of daily interviews with artists - on BBC Radio 3, and a forthcoming series for Woman's Hour on Radio 4. (things 1, 2)

Simon Armitage is well-known both as a poet and broadcaster. His collections of poetry include: Kid (1992) and Book of Matches (1993), both published by Faber and Faber. His most recent collection of work is The Dead Sea Poems, also published by Faber and Faber in 1995 (things 5).

Rebecca Arnold lectures in fashion history and cultural studies at Central St Martin's College of Art and Design and The Surrey Institute of Art and Design. She was a contributor to Contemporary Fashion, edited by Richard Martin (St. James's Press, 1995) (things 5).

Born in Berlin, Jivan Astfalck is a practising goldsmith, artist and writer. She is also a lecturer at the School of Jewellery, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, University of Central England. At present she is involved in research for a practice-based PhD at the Chelsea College of Art and Design, The London Institute (things 12).

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian author. Her best-known books include The Handmaid's Tale and The Robber Bride. Her most recent novel, Alias Grace, was shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize (things 5).

Anne Aurasmaa is a research associate at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is working on a doctoral thesis on the presentation of non-western cultures in museums (things 8).

Jeremy Aynsley (things 1).

Liz Bailey is a freelance journalist writing about design, technology and cars (home page).

Steve Baker is a senior lecturer in historical and critical studies at the University of Central Lancashire. His recent work includes an article exploring the place of fiction in design writing, published in the 1997 special issue of Design Issues on 'Design and its criticism'. He is currently working on a book, The Postmodern Animal, which is to be published by Reaktion Books (things 8).

Jacq Barber is the press officer for Bonhams auctioneers, and previously worked at the Victoria & Albert Museum and Phillips autioneers. She is currently researching the crafts movement in Britain during the inter-war years (things 7).

Charles Barclay runs an architectural practice in Brixton, south London, specialising in dramatic reworkings of domestic space.

Jonathan Bell is a writer and freelance journalist. He is the editor, with Sally Godwin, of Architectural Design's The Transformable House and the editor of Carchitecture (August Publications).

Dipti Bhagat is a second-year student on the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art MA course in the history of design. Her dissertation subject is 'Buying more than a diamond: the representation of South Africa in the international exhibitions in London in the late 19th century' (things 4).

Laurel Blossom is a poet, and editor of Splash! Great Writing About Swimming (Ecco Press, 1996).

Liz Boggis (MA RCA) is a documentary film-maker (things 2).

Andrew Bolton is a curator in the Far Eastern department of the Victoria & Albert Museum. He has published several articles on 20th-century Chinese art and culture and is currently preparing a book on the Mao cult.

David Brady is a curator at the Wellcome Institute of Medicine, and a freelance lecturer and reviewer. He is active in the Twentieth-Century Society (things 7).

Jolyon Brewis is an architect living in London. He is an associate director of Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners Ltd and for the past three years has spent much of his time realising the spectacular environmental Eden Project in Cornwall, which is due to open in 2001.

Christopher Breward is Reader in Historical and Cultural Studies at London College of Fashion, The London Institute (things 1, 13).

Margaret Campbell trained as an interior designer and is a lecturer in design history in the Department of Humanties at Edinburgh College of Art. She is currently completing her MPhil dissertation on the relationship between tuberculosis and modernist architecture and design (things 8).

Erica Carter is a research fellow in German at the University of Warwick. Her books include Cultural Remix: Theories of Politics and the Popular (co-edited with James Donald and Judith Squires), and the forthcoming How German is She? Post-war German Reconstruction and the Consuming Woman (Michigan University Press) (things 3).

Isabelle Cartier  (things 1).

Frank Cartledge (MA RCA) graduated recently from the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art MA course in the History of Design. His dissertation subject was 'The fashion of violence: the football scally or casual, 1979-1984' (things 5).

Helen Clifford is a tutor on the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art MA course in the history of design at the Victoria & Albert Museum. She is co-editor (with Maxine Berg) of Consumer Culture in Europe 1650-1850, to be published by Manchester University Press in 1998 (things 1, 7).

Shaun Cole is assistant curator in the Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings at the Victoria & Albert Museum. He was researcher for the lesbian and gay styles and skinhead sections of the Streetstyle exhibition held at the V&A in 1994. He curated the Graphic Responses to Aids (1996) and Fashion on Paper (1997) exhibitions, also at the V&A. He is currently working on a book on the history of gay men's dress for Berg (things 6).

Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist. He studied sculpture at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver as well as in Sapporo, Japan and Milan. He continues to do art and design projects in Vancouver, where he grew up and continues to live (things 10) (home page).

Willa Cline, a writer and web designer, lives with her husband and two cats in Overland Park, Kansas, USA (things 13) (home page).

Robert Crawford's collections of poetry include A Scottish Assembly (1990), Talkies (1992) and Masculinity (1992). He is professor of modern Scottish literature at the University of St Andrews and is the editor, with Simon Armitage, of The Penguin Book of Poetry from Britain and Ireland since 1945.

David Crowley is a lecturer in the History of Design at Brighton University. He is the author of National Style and Nation State (Manchester University Press, 1994); and the co-author, with Paul Jobling, of Reproduction and Representation: A Contextual History of Graphic Design (Manchester University Press, to be published in 1996). (things 2)

Tim Dant is a senior lecturer in sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. His most recent book is Material Culture in the Social World (Open University Press, 1999); he is currently writing a book on the links between German and French traditions of critical theory.

Peter Davidson is Chalmers Regius Professor of English at the University of Aberdeen (things 13).

Jonathan Day spent many years on the road playing the streets, bars and festivals of Europe, including the Edinburgh Fringe, Ireland's Summer Madness and Russia's Alternative Music Festival. He lectures in the history of design at the University of Central England, specialising in non-European art and design and photography. He has recently released an album called A Sky Like Me (things 10).

Paula Deitz writes frequently for The New York Times. She is also the editor of The Hudson Review (things 12).

Luke Dodd has worked in museums in Ireland and the United States. He developed the famine museum, Roscommon, to commemorate the great Irish famine of the 1840s. At the moment, he is working on an archive and visitor centre for the Guardian newspaper (things 11).

Jacqueline Durran is a second-year student on the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art MA in the History of Design. Her dissertation subject is British film costume (things 3).

Bronwen Edwards is doing PhD research into the history of fashion and architecture at the London College of Fashion.

Stephen Escritt is the author of Art Deco Style and of Art Nouveau (Phaidon Press). He also works for the London antiques dealer Carlton Hobbs. (things 1, 2)

Ruth Fainlight was born in New York and now lives in London. A new collection of her poetry, Sugar Paper Blue, will be published by Bloodaxe Books in September (things 6).

Russell Flinchum teaches history of industrial design and 20th-century decorative arts in the Cooper-Hewitt/Parsons School of Design MA program in the decorative arts, and history of industrial design and modern architecture at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. He is guest curator for the exhibition Henry Dreyfuss: Directing Design, which opens at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York, in 1997 (things 5).

Hannah Ford is a recent graduate of the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art MA programme in the history of design, for which her thesis subject was 'Modernism and toy design; the story of Abbott Toys 1932-1960'. She is a visiting lecturer at Central St Martin's College of Art and Design and is currently curating an exhibition on complexity in contemporary design called Identity Crisis, which opens at the Lighthouse in Glasgow in November 1999 (things 9).

Colette Forder is the deputy editor of The Times Magazine (things 11).

Sarah Foster is a lecturer in design history at the Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork. (things 1, 2, 4

Christopher  Frayling  (things 1)

Maria Georgaki is a design historian currently involved in doctoral research on the ILEA/Camberwell Collection. She teaches at Camberwell College and the Southampton Institute (things 13).

Miles Glendinning is co-author of Tower Block (with Stefan Muthesius, 1994) and A History of Scottish Architecture (with Ranald MacInnes and Aonghus MacKechnie, 1996) (things 5).

Maria Gould is the co-founder, with Diana Kiesners, of The Writing Space, a small press and writers' organisation in Toronto. She is studying educational philosophy at the University of Toronto, and is a member of the editorial board of Descant magazine (things 7).

Philip Graham is the author of two short story collections, The Art of the Knock and Interior Design, and a novel, How to Read an Unwritten Language. He is also co-author, with Alma Gottlieb, of Parallel Worlds, a memoir of Africa. He teaches at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. (things 10, 14 and 16)

David Greenslade writes in both Welsh and English. 'Cardboard Box' appeared from Two Rivers Press in a volume entitled Each Broken Object in the autumn of 1999.

Mia Hatgis is a second-year student on the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art MA course in the history of design. She was a curatorial assistant for the recent Royal College of Art exhibition Designs of the Times. Her dissertation subject is 'Selling Childhood: The Merchandising of Children's Toys in the American Department Store 1890-1929' (things 4).

Sam Hecht (MA RCA) is Head of Industrial Design at IDEO Europe. He is currently working with Prada, Steelcase, elektex and Airbus Industries, for which he has designed the economy class cabins for the A3XX, the world's largest aircraft. He has lived and worked in California, Tokyo, Tel Aviv and London; his work will be shown in forthcoming exhibitions in New York and Paris (things 13).

Sorrel Herschberg is assistant curator in the department of Furniture and Woodwork at the Victoria & Albert Museum. She is currently researching English commercial furniture from the period 1880-1914 (things 7).

Rosemary Hill is the contributing editor to Crafts magazine. She is writing a biography of Pugin (things 12).

Clive Hilton (MA RCA) teaches design theory and design history at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication. Chelsea School of Art and Design and Surrey Institute of Art and Design. He is also engaged in freelance industrial design work for the cable television service industry (things 2, 4).

Jorma Hinkka is a Finnish graphic designer with more than 30 years' experience as an art director in advertising. During the past five years he has concentrated on book design and new media in his own studio. Jorma Hinkka has lectured widely and published on the subject of digital typography (things 6).

Lisa Hirst (MA RCA) has taught fashion and textile students at the Royal College of Art and Surrey Institute of Art and Design, and worked in the textiles and dress department at the Victoria & Albert Museum. She currently works for British Design & Art Direction (things 1, 13).

Ambrose Hogan is a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth (things 9).

Timothy W.A. Horan is a resident of 'old' New York's Chelsea section, where he pursues his deep interests in architectural renovation, decorative arts and New York history (things 13).

Susan Howe is a lecturer in marketing at Basingstoke College of Technology. She has an MA in design history and material culture. Her dissertation, The Design Council After Modernism and Other Participants in the Urban Design Process 1963 to 1979, reflects her interest in the interdisciplinary overlaps between design and geography (things 8).

Kristina Huneault (MA Concordia University, Canada) is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Manchester. Her work on images of Canadian women during the First World War has been published by the Journal of Canadian Art History (1994), and she is author of a catalogue on the Ontario artist Lucille Oille (Art Gallery of Windsor, 1991) (things 4).

Amin Jaffer (PhD RCA) is a research fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum and is currently cataloguing the museum's holdings of Indo-European furniture and woodwork. The subject of his doctoral thesis, which he completed this year and of which the article printed here is an edited extract, is Furniture in Early British India, 1750-1830.

Kathleen Jamie is a Scottish poet. Her most recent book of poems, The Queen of Sheba (Bloodaxe Books), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; it also won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1995 and the Geoffrey Faber Prize in 1996 (things 6).

Eleanor John (MA RCA) is assistant curator at the Geffrye Museum. Her dissertation subject (1995) was 'The China Here is Lovely': The British and the Acquisition of French Luxury Goods in the 18th Century (thing 1, 4).

Preston Johns is an automotive aficionado and cartographer. He is currently mournng the demise of LRV 288Y, an elderly Citröen whose departure from this life was hastened by a close encounter with a small Japanese vanity four-wheel-drive (things 12).

Paddy Johnson (things 2).

Celia Joicey (MA RCA) is assistant editor of the RSA Journal (things 1, 6).

Ilya Kabakov is one of the most prominent of contemporary Russian artists. The Palace of Projects was on show at the Roundhouse, London, in the spring of 1998.

Harri Kalha, PhD, an authority on modernism in Finnish design and applied arts, is currently a visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York, conducting research on the role of gender and sexuality in aesthetic discourse and the representation of gender in popular visual culture (things  2, 11).

Sarah Kane conducted research into the origins of the collections at the Bowes Museum, County Durham, as a research assistant at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle. She is currently an editor at Harvey Miller Publishers in London (things 5).

Jaan Kaplinski is an Estonian poet. Two volumes of his work, The Same Sea in Us All and The Wandering Border, have appeared in English. A third, Through the Forest, translated by Hildi Hawkins, is published this spring (things 4).

Marilynn Gelfman Karp is the founder of the masters' programme in Art Dealership and Collecting at New York University.

Victoria Kelley lectures in design history and fashion history at Kent Institute of Art and Design and Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design. She is currently working on a PhD and a book entitled Soap and Water - cleanliness, class and gender 1880-1914 (things 1, 2, 13).

Ann Kelly (MA RCA) is currently carrying out research in the Indian Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum. The subject of her MA dissertation (1995) was The Affluent Urban Interior in Contemporary Bombay (things 1, 2, 4).

Stephen Kent is a first-year student on the V&A/RCA MA programme in the history of design. He is currently researching gender politics and the electric drill (things 4).

Jonathan Key received his doctorate from the University of Warwick, with a thesis entitled 'Paranoia and irony in the Anglophone detective narrative and the novels of Umberto Eco'. He has recently lectured on the relationship between detective fiction, stage magic and spiritualism in Victorian culture, and is now researching notions of conspiracy in the fiction of John Buchan (things 11).

Jyrki Kiiskinen is a Finnish poet and novelist. He is editor-in-chief of Books from Finland, a quarterly journal of writings from and about Finland published in English (Helsinki University Library). He lives in Helsinki with his wife and son, Otto (things 5).

Robin Kinross is a typographer, writer and publisher in London. He is the author of Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History (Hyphen Press, 1992) (things 2, 3).

Thomas Kleibrink is a German-born antique-dealer and collector. When not touring the markets of Europe, he is to be found in the Café Mode in Endell Street in London's Covent Garden, making excellent cappuccinos for the hard-drinking editors of things (things 4).

Tuva Korsström is an arts journalist and literary critic at Hufvudstadsbladet, Finland's main Swedish-language daily newspaper. She has published a book of interviews with contemporary European novelists and a collection of essays on the ideological change after the fall of the Soviet Union (things 10).

Leena Krohn won the Finlandia Prize for her collection of essays Matemaattisia olioita, tai jaettuja unia ('Mathematical creatures, or shared dreams'). Her novels Doña Quixote and Gold of Ophir are published in English by Carcanet Press (1996). Another novel, Tainaron. Letters from a Strange City, is to be found on her home page (things 1).

Erkki Kurenniemi was born in 1941. After studies in mathematics and theoretical physics, electronic compositions and construction of digital music instruments (1961-1974), he has worked on the design of industrial robots and automation systems (1975-1986), exhibit design at the Finnish science centre Heureka (1987-1998), and is currently engaged in research in music theory (1999- ) (things 11).

Anneli Kurki is information officer of the Finnish Theatre Information Centre in Helsinki (things 7).

Grace Lees (MA RCA) is a freelance lecturer who divides her time between the University of Hertfordshire and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Her 1996 dissertation, 'The process of meaning: Alessi in Britain 1980-1996', reflects research interests spanning consumption, fashion and gender. Recent papers include 'The gender of car culture' and 'Historicism in late 20th-century fashion' (things 6).

Ulrich Lehmann studied at Frankfurt and Paris and has an MA from the Courtauld Institute in London. He has recently completed a PhD thesis on 'Fashion and modernity'. He currently teaches at Kent Institute of Art and Design (things 6).

Soila Lehtonen is a journalist and theatre critic, and the Helsinki editor of the literary magazine Books from Finland (things 12).

Esther Leslie lectures at Birkbeck College, London. She has written Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism (Pluto Press, 2000).and next spring Verso will publish her Hollywood Flatlands, a study of animation, the avant-garde and European intellectuals. She is also compiling material for a volume on mutinies in post-First World War Europe and India (things 13).

Rosa Liksom is a Finnish dramatist and writer. Two volumes of her short prose pieces, One-Night Stands and Bamalama, have been published in English translation (Serpent's Tail) (things 4).

Ruth Levy  (things 2).

Viivi Luik is an Estonian poet and novelist. Ajaloo ilu ('The beauty of history'), the novella from which the extract printed in things 10 is taken, is an extended prose poem which moves freely between the events of August 1968 (the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia) and the present day. It has been translated into German, French and English.

Elsa MacDougall lives in London (things 13).

Christopher Madden is eight. The winner of the prize for Inner statement in the Villa Vitigliano dancing competition 1999, he would like to be a sommelier when he grows up (things 11).

Kate McIntyre is a senior lecture in the faculty of design at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College (things 13).

Jean McIntyre is a second-year student on the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art MA programme in the History of Design. Her dissertation is about Irish country house interiors. Before reading for her MA, she worked for six years at the Design Council as an education co-ordinator (things 3).

Alan Mäkinen is an artist and a writer, and the publisher of Snowbound zine. By day he is a digital imaging technician. He currently resides in Chicago.

Rick Mather is an architect. His most recent projects include the renovation of the Wallace Collection in central London, the Neptune Court in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the extension to the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the masterplan for the South Bank Centre (things 12).

Lesley Miller is a senior lecturer at Winchester School of Art, where she is course leader for the MA in the History of Textiles and Dress. She is the author of Cristobal Balenciaga (1895-1972) (Batsford, 1993), and her main research interests lie in France and Spain. She has contributed articles on the development of design as an identifiable occupation in the 18th century to Text (1993), Costume (1995) and The Journal of Design History (1995).

Augusto Monterroso (born 1921) is a Guatemalan author who lives in Mexico. He specialises in short fiction (things 8).

Christopher Mount is an assistant curator in the Architecture and Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has organised numerous exhibitions, including Stenberg Brothers: Constructing a Revolution in Soviet Design, Refining the Sports Car: Jaguar's E-Type, Typography and the Poster, Designed for Speed: Three Automobiles by Ferrari and Kaj Franck: Designer. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Parson's School of Design, where he teaches the history of 20th-century design, and writes frequently for various magazines and journals (things 8).

Edwin Morgan  (things 2).

Gillian Naylor (things 1).

Maren Nelson is currently studying for an MA in design history at the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art (things 5).

font color="#339900">Philip Nobel is a Brooklyn-based architectural historian. His current projects include research on the role of American architects in the Second World War and a study of modern synagogue design (things 8).

Nicholas Oddy is a lecturer in historical and critical studies at Glasgow School of Art. He is also a consultant for Philips Auctioneers on cycles and cycling memorabilia. His most recent publication on the subject is, 'The Bicycle', in The Gendered Object, edited by Pat Kirkham and published by Manchester University Press (things 7).

Alistair O'Neill is a second-year student on the V&A/RCA MA programme in the history of design. His dissertation subject is '"Uno Cappuccino, no Froth": The promotion of Italianicity in Post-War London' (things 4).

Andrea Owen  (things 2).

Monika Parrinder is a lecturer in typo/graphic history and theory at the London College of Printing and also lectures in cultural studies at Central St Martins School of Art. She is also a freelance graphic designer and the designer of things (things 13).

Jane Pavitt is a senior lecturer in the School of Art History and Conservation at Camberwell College of Arts. Her book on Prague, in Manchester University Press's Buildings of Europe series, is to be published later in 1995 (things 2, 3).

Susan Pearce is Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Leicester. She was formerly head of the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester and has published widely on the history of museums and collecting; her books include: Museum Objects and Collections (1992), Interpreting Objects and Collections (1994), and most recently, On Collecting: an investigation into collecting in the European tradition (1995) (things 5).

Lucy Peltz received her doctorate from the University of Manchester for a thesis entitled 'The extra-illustration of London: leisure, sociability and the antiquarian city in the late 18th century'. She is currently a fellow of the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, where she is preparing a scholarly edition of the manuscript antiquarian tours of Dorothy Richardson (1760-1802), and is also a co-editor of Producing the Past: Aspects of Antiquarian Culture and Practice, 1800-1850 (forthcoming, Aldershot) (things 8).

Georges Perec (1936-1982) was a French writer and key member of the OUvroir de LIttérature POtentielle (OULiPo), or 'workshop for potential literature', a group of writers and mathematicians who shared an interest in word games and the use of formal constraints in literature. His best-known work is Life: A Users's Manual (1978) (things 8).

Tracey Potts is a lecturer in cultural studies at Staffordshire University. She is also an associate fellow in the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, University of Warwick (things 13).

Alan Powers is the vice-chairman of the Twentieth Century Society and a librarian at the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture.

E.Annie Proulx's first novel, Postcards, won the Pen/Faulkner Award in 1993; her second, The Shipping News, won the Irish Times parize for fiction. Accordion Crimes is shortlisted for the 1996 Orange Prize (things 6).

Rebecca Preston is a freelance researcher and writer based in London. She is the author of 'Lovely in the Garden', Design Review, 1994, and is currently working on issues in the history of British gardening and landscape. (things 2)

Heather Puttock is an internet journalist. She has worked for the Guardian online and 365corp.com (things 13).

Harry Z. Rand is a senior curator at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC (things 5).

Charles Rattray is a lecturer at The Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, principal in the architectural practice Hutton Rattray, and the editor of alt'ing: The Scottish Journal of Architectural Research. He contributes regularly to architectural journals including Architectural Research Quarterly and The Architectural Review (things 5).

Ruth Rau works for jones knowles ritchie design consultants in London. She designed the first ten issues of things (things 9).

Jody Rosen is a freelance writer based in New York city. He is currently completing an MPhil thesis at University College, London, on the role of popular music in the formation of Jewish-American identity (things 5).

Ian Ruffell is at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, writing a DPhil thesis on fantasy in ancient Greek comedy. His other interests include representations of the symposium and the ideologies of dress in Classical Athens (things 7).

Flora Samuel is an architect. After training at Cambridge, she held a teaching fellowship at Princeton, worked in practice and taught at a variety of schools before joining the University of Wales. She is currently writing a PhD thesis on the representation of the virgin Mary in the work of Le Corbusier and working with members of the Jungian community on links between architecture and the ideas of analytical psychology.

Charles Saumarez Smith is director of the National Portrait Gallery. He has written widely on the history of the decorative arts and design in Britain; his publications include Eighteenth-Century Decoration: Design and the Domestic Interior in Britain, The Building of Castle Howard, and 'Museums, Artefacts and Meanings' in Peter Vergo (ed.), The New Museology (things 4).

Chris van Scheltinga is still working on his music writing/producing career. He can be reached at any time (of course) on his mobile and will generally speak to anyone... especially people from record companies.

Bettina Schürkamp trained as an architect at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, and from 1996-7 she joined the Architectural Association in London for an MA course in Histories and Theories of Architecture. Discussions between design and theory inform her work, which has been published in the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau as well as in the architectural publications db and DBZ.

Sei Shonagon was a court lady in 10th-century Japan.

Katherine Sharp (MA RCA) is currently co-writing a book on 19th-century design and applied arts (forthcoming from Manchester University Press). Since completing her MA two years ago she has worked on 18th-century collections and landscapes for several heritage organisations (things 1, 2, 6).

Raija Siekkinen is a Finnish short-story writer and novelist whose short stories have been published extensively in English in the journal Books from Finland (things 6).

Judith Somerville has worked as a production assistant at the Royal Opera House, as an assistant to the conductor Leopold Stokowski, as editor of the books pages of Country Life; since 1987 she has been a full-time painter (things 7).

Bodo Sperlein has recently graduated with a BA in ceramics design from Camberwell College of Art. His dissertation subject was the use of ceramics and porcelain for propaganda purposes in the Third Reich. He exhibited at the 1996 European Design Biennale in Belgium, and is currently working on projects incorporating ceramics with lighting and furniture (things 6).

Gavin Stamp is a lecturer at the Mackintosh School of Architecture and chairman of the Twentieth Century Society.

Leonie Stanton (things 1, 2).

Greg Stevenson is an archaeologist who specialises in modern material culture. His recently published book, Art Deco Ceramics, was written with the intention of providing an affordable introductory guide to the famous and not-so-famous names in inter-war ceramics. He lectures part-time on design history for the University of Wales (things 9).

Jane Stevenson is Reader in Comparative Literature at the University of Aberdeen. Her latest novel, London Bridges (Jonathan Cape) is out to mixed reviews (things 12).

Christopher Stocks collects Shell Guides, has an unhealthy interest in sewage treatment, travels the world for Wallpaper magazine, advises the Girl Guides on calligraphy, edits the magazine of the Dorchester, Meurice and Beverly Hills hotels as well as the annual Forward Book of Poetry. He also writes the labels on M&S swimwear (things12).

Jonathan Swift  (things 2).

Tim Travis is a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum and a student at Chelsea College of Art and Design (things 7).

Lucy Trusler is a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art/Victoria & Albert Museum MA course in renaissance history of design. Her dissertation subject was the material culture of renaissance children, focussing on the study of clothes, furniture and toys (things 13).

Carol Tulloch is a freelance lecturer and researcher, and is currently writing a book entitled The Birth of Cool: The Culture of Dress in the Black Diaspora (things 8).

Alice Twemlow is a second-year student on the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art MA programme in the History of Design. Her dissertation subject is the design of title sequences and sets for the pop television programme Ready Steady Go.

Francesca Vanke is a PhD student on the Camberwell/Chelsea Colleges of Art 'British Empire and Design' project. She is researching the impact of Islamic ceramics and glass on British ceramics and glass between 1867 and 1914 (things 5).

Dai Vaughan has worked as a documentary film editor since 1963. His novels The Cloud Chamber and Moritur are published by Quartet, and his collection of twelve essays For Documentary has recently been published by the University of California Press.

Clive Wainwright was senior research fellow in 19th-century studies at the Victoria & Albert Museum. He published widely on the applied arts and the history of collecting (things 6).

Stephen Watts is a poet. A seleciton of his poems, Gramsci and Caruso, is forthcoming from Bellew Publishing in 1999. He does a great deal of writing work with young children. His bibliography of 20th-century poetry in English translation will appear in 1999 (things 9).

Marjorie Welish's recent books of poetry include The Annotated Here and Selected Poems (Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 2000) from which this poem appears, and Begetting Textile (Equipage, Cambridge, 2000), written in partial fulfillment of a Howard Foundation Fellowship, from Brown University. Her book of art criticism is Signifying Art: Essays on Art after 1960 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999) (things 13).

Verity Wilson is assistant curator in the Far Eastern Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum. She is the author of Chinese Dress in the Victoria & Albert Museum, (V&A Publications, 1986), and is currently preparing a book on clothes and culture in twentieth-century China.

Edmund de Waal is a potter and writer. His most recent exhibition was with the Garth Clark Gallery in New York this summer, and he has just published a critical study of Bernard Leach (Tate Publications, 1998) (things 8).

Louise Ward (MA RCA) graduated recently from the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art MA course in the History of Design. Her dissertation subject was 'Fabricating Tradition: interior decoration and an ideal of the English country house'. Since 1993 she has been a part-time lecturer in design history. She is undertaking research into the decoration of Strawberry Hill, and has just taken up a post to produce a computerised catalogue of a private collection of fine and decorative arts (things 5).

Gareth Williams is assistant curator in the Furniture and Woodwork Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum. He specialises in 20th-century furniture and interiors (things 4).

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was a novelist and essayist, and a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group. Orlando, a celebration of the character of Vita Sackville-West, was first published in 1928 (things 8).

Tony Wood lives in London and works for the New Left Review (things 13).

Adam Zagajewski is a Polish poet. He lives in Paris, but spends part of each year teaching in America at the University of Houston.

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