George William Curtis (1824 - 1892) was a traveller, essayist and fiction writer who was particularly renowned for his short stories. He combined a highly polished style with a great sense of humour and his works we enthusiastically received in the heydays of American Periodical Literature.

In the marvellous story Titbottom's Spectacles, Curtis displays the individual charm of his work as well as the delicate atmosphere of sympathy and humour in which he sets his scenes and his characters. It is a part mystical, part satirical account of the possession of a pair of spectacles which can reveal people as they really are in their essential qualities.