Lord Byron died in April 1824, and a month later his memoirs were burned in a London drawing room. Byron had left the manuscript with his literary executor Thomas Moore, hoping it would be published. Byron's publisher John Murray decided the pages were too scandalous for Byron's reputation and for his own business, so he tore them up and placed them in the fire. Thomas Medwin's Journal of the conversations of Lord Byron appeared that same year. It recorded Byron's talk in Pisa in 1821 and 1822 to make up for the lost work.

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.