Jap Herron, published in New York in 1917, was presented as a novel written by Mark Twain from beyond the grave, dictated through a Ouija board. The scribe was Emily Grant Hutchings, a St. Louis writer who had corresponded with Twain fifteen years earlier. She and Lola Hays said they began receiving messages in 1915 while using a Ouija board at a spiritualist meeting. The novel tells of a poor Missouri boy who grows into a useful man and helps reform his town. The New York Times reviewed it and called it the third such novel in a few months claiming a dead author's hand. Twain's daughter Clara Clemens objected, and the publishers Harper and Brothers, who held the rights to his works, went to court. The case never reached trial because Hutchings agreed to stop publication and destroy the copies she could find, which is why surviving copies are very rare.

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.