Behind many modern literary masterpieces stood women whose work was rarely credited. Theodora Bosanquet worked as the secretary and typist to the novelist Henry James, taking dictation as he composed his late novels. Véra Nabokov typed, edited and defended the work of her husband Vladimir Nabokov, and famously helped save the manuscript of Lolita from being burned. Valerie Eliot, T. S. Eliot's wife, later edited and published the original drafts of The Waste Land, revealing how much editor Ezra Pound had shaped it. The typewriter, which spread in the late 19th century, opened office jobs to women, and many were poorly paid assistants to male writers. Their labour was often unpaid and invisible.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.