Joseph Kenny Meadows (1790-1874) was an illustrator and watercolourist from Cardigan in Wales. By 1823 he was working and exhibiting in London as a comic illustrator and caricaturist. He collaborated with Isaac and Robert Cruikshank on The Devil in London (1832) and went on to produce his most notable work in 1840, Portraits of the English - a series of character sketches treated in a broad caricature style. His illustrated three-volume collection of Shakespeare's plays (1843) is considered his masterpiece. He also produced illustrations for Punch and Illustrated London News and from 1843 to 1845 was the principal artist of The Illuminated Magazine.

The poem, The Witches' Frolic was written by the English novelist, humorous poet and Anglican priest, Richard Harris Barham (1788 – 1845). Barham, better known by his nom de plume, Thomas Ingoldsby, was born in Canterbury and educated at St. Paul's School and Brasenose College, Oxford. From 1826 he ws a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine and on the establishment of Bentley's Miscellany in 1837 he began the series of tales known as The Ingoldsby Legends. These popular tales were published in a collected form and have since been reprinted in numerous editions.