Rosamond Harding

[3] During the First World War, Harding worked at a Chivers and Sons jam factory, and in 1922 began studying music at Newnham College, Cambridge.

[3] Both of Harding's parents died in 1942, during which year she held a research fellowship at Newnham College, and was appointed its Director of Studies in Music.

Her readiness to explore and report the often bewildering byways of early piano actions; the precision of her technical drawings (which she laboriously executed herself in pen and ink); and the copious appendices with their heavy burden of reference data - such features tell us very quickly that we are engaging with an author with serious aims and high intellectual attainments.

[2] Although sales of her history of the pianoforte were disappointing during her lifetime, Harding's An Anatomy of Inspiration proved very popular, running through multiple editions.

According to Maria Popova, in this book Harding set out "to reverse-engineer the mechanisms of creativity through the direct experiences of famous creators across art, science, and literature".

[6] Popova writes that:One particularly interesting notion Harding puts forth is that of “fringe-ideas” — ideas on the periphery of the thinker’s particular inquiry, but resonant in tone and thus able to enhance and flow into the creative process.