Playwright Simon Gray was born in Hayling Island, Hampshire, England on October 21, 1936. He received degrees from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and from Cambridge University. He has edited a literary review (like the characters in The Common Pursuit) and taught drama, poetry, and English literature in universities, both major and provincial. He has written 40 plays, television plays, and screenplays and five novels, and adapted Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot for the National Theatre. Some of his works include Butley, Otherwise Engaged, Quartermaine's Terms, The Smoking Diaries, The Year of the Jouncer, and The Last Cigarette. He died on August 6, 2008.