Sofia Petrovna, which we have just published, opens with the line, "After the death of her husband, Sofia Petrovna took a course in typing". She finds employment in a Leningrad publishing house and "after a month...she simply couldn't understand how she had ever lived without the office" with its constant clattering of Underwood typewriters. Lydia Chukovskaya wrote the novella in 1939-40 in lilac ink in a school notebook which had to be hidden for years, and it was not until 1962 that it was typed out and offered for publication.