This volume of Geographers Biobibliographical Studies brings together essays on four Frenchmen, a Czech, and three Englishmen. The lives of our subjects extend from the late Enlightenment and the era of 'polite science' in Regency Britain to the first decade of the 21st century. These geographers and their studies are linked not only in their regional expertise - from Brazil, French Indo-China to Scandinavia and South Africa - but also by their commitment to the development of geography as a science and as a discipline. Here, in different settings and at different times, we can see how the lived experience of geographers' lives shaped the contours of the subject.