Follow Business Insider: You've seen Google's annual lists of trendy search terms, featuring things like  robin williams, world cup, and ebola , but those show only the most unusually popular terms, not the most popular terms overall.
Murasaki Shikibu is the best known writer to emerge from Japan's glorious Heian period. Her novel, The Tale of Genji (Genji-monogatari) is considered to be one of the world's finest and earliest novels. Some argue that Murasaki is the world's first modern novelist.
America's First Poet. Anne Bradstreet was a famous poet from the 17th century. She is the first American poet and the first female poet to be published both in England and America. Bradstreet was born in England, where her father worked as an administrator for an earl. Her parents made sure that she was educated while growing up, more so than most women of the time.