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QWERTYUIOP: How the Typewriter Influenced Writing Practices

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Approaches to the History of Written Culture

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Abstract

This chapter offers a preliminary assessment of the typewriter’s contribution to the history of writing practices. The metaphors (military, musical) with which writers responded to the machine are briefly surveyed, and its arrival placed within the culture of modernity and the jazz age. The chapter then identifies two common and contradictory responses to the typewriter from authors canonical and otherwise. Firstly, the typewriter alienated the author from his or her own text, and this distancing effect changed writing methods, as in the example of Henry James. On the other hand, the ‘romantic typewriter’ offered opportunities for spontaneous and intuitive writing, as in the case of Jack Kerouac. I will lastly draw attention to the return of orality to writing practices, signalled by McLuhan.

A slightly longer version of this paper was published in Quaerendo 44:4, 2014, pp. 219–240, and material from it appears here by kind permission of the editor, Lisa Kuitert.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Matthew Solan, ‘Tracking Down Typewriters’, in Poets and Writers, Sept–Oct. 2009, p. 33. (Solan 2009).

  2. 2.

    Robert Messenger, ‘Typing Writers: An Endangered Species (but not yet extinct)’, Canberra Times, 14 February 2009, p. 16. (Messenger 2009).

  3. 3.

    Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Global Transformations in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, UK (Cambridge University Press), 1979. (Eisenstein 1979).

  4. 4.

    In an abundant literature, see Christopher Keep, ‘The Cultural Work of the Type-Writer Girl’, Victorian Studies 40:3, 1997, pp. 401–426. (Keep 1997); Joli Jensen, ‘Using the Typewriter: Secretaries, Reporters and Authors, 1880–1930’, Technology in Society 10, 1988, pp. 255–266. (Jensen 1988); Lisa Fine, ‘Un genre venu d’ailleurs’, in Monique Peyrière, ed., Machines à écrire. Des claviers et des puces: la traversée du siècle, Paris (Autrement: collection Mutations/Sciences en Société no. 146), 1994, pp. 32–44. (Peyrière 1994).

  5. 5.

    Gerd Krumeich, ‘Les oubliées du progrès’, in Peyrière, Machines à écrire, p. 84.

  6. 6.

    Peyrière, Machines à écrire, p. 19.

  7. 7.

    The Forum 44:6, December 1910.

  8. 8.

    Giacomo Balla, ‘Onomatopea rumorista Macchina Tipografica’, in Giacomo Balla and Fortunato Depero, eds., Ricostruzione futurista dell’universo, Milan (Direzione del Movimento Futurista), 1915. (Balla 1915); Lawrence Rainey, Christine Poggi and Laura Wittman, eds., Futurism: An Anthology, New Haven, CT (Yale University Press), 2009, p. 430. (Rainey et al. 2009).

  9. 9.

    F.T. Marinetti, The Futurist Manifesto, 1909, translated in James Joll, Three Intellectuals in Politics, New York (Pantheon), 1960, pp. 179–184. (Joll 1960).

  10. 10.

    Guillaume Apollinaire, Calligrammes, poèmes de la paix et de la guerre 1913–1916, Paris (Mercure de France), 1918. (Apollinaire 1918).

  11. 11.

    Hugh Kenner, The Mechanic Muse, New York (Oxford University Press), 1987. (Kenner 1987).

  12. 12.

    Mark Twain, ‘The First Writing-Machines’, in Charles Neider, ed., The Complete Essays of Mark Twain Now Collected for the First Time, Garden City, NY (Doubleday), 1963, pp. 324–326. (Neider 1963).

  13. 13.

    Ibid., p. 326.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., pp. 324–326. Twain’s mistake was corrected by Darren Wershler-Henry, The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting, Ithaca, NY (Cornell University Press), 2007, p. 225. (Wershler-Henry 2007).

  15. 15.

    Arthur Sullivan Hoffman ed., Fiction Writers on Fiction Writing: Advice, Opinions, and a Statement of Their Own Working Methods by More Than One Hundred Writers, Indianapolis, IN (Bobbs-Merrill), 1923, p. 411. (Hoffman 1923).

  16. 16.

    Ibid., p. 412.

  17. 17.

    Bruce Bliven, jr., The Wonderful Writing Machine, New York (Random House), 1954, p. 112. (Bliven 1954).

  18. 18.

    Wershler-Henry, Iron Whim, p. 234; Bliven, Wonderful Writing Machine, pp. 114–115.

  19. 19.

    Bliven, Wonderful Writing Machine, pp. 116–130.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., p. 118.

  21. 21.

    Friedrich A. Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Stanford, CA (Stanford University Press), 1986, pp. 190–193. (Kittler 1986).

  22. 22.

    Carlos Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, New York (Charles Scribner’s & Sons), 1969, p. 90. (Baker 1969); Ernest Hemingway, ‘Mitrailliatrice’, Poetry 21, January 1923, pp. 193–195. (Hemingway 1923).

  23. 23.

    Ernest Hemingway, Interview in Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews: Second Series, (1963), ed. George Plimpton, New York (Penguin), 1977 (Plimpton 1977), Plimpton’s preface to his interview with Hemingway, pp. 218–219.

  24. 24.

    Henry Lawson, ‘The Firing Line’, in When I Was King And Other Verses, Sydney (Angus & Robertson), 1906. (Lawson 1906).

  25. 25.

    Wershler-Henry, Iron Whim, p. 247.

  26. 26.

    Kathleen Burk, ‘The Telly Don’, BBC History, August 2000, p. 52. (Burk 2000).

  27. 27.

    Bliven, Wonderful Writing Machine, p.38.

  28. 28.

    Catherine Viollet, ‘Écriture méchanique, espaces de frappe: quelques préalables à une sémiologie du dactylogramme’, Genesis 10, 1996, p. 199. (Viollet 1996).

  29. 29.

    Ibid., p. 198.

  30. 30.

    Fine, ‘Un genre venu d’ailleurs’, p. 35.

  31. 31.

    Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, pp. 199 and 210.

  32. 32.

    Viollet, ‘Écriture méchanique’, p. 204.

  33. 33.

    Georges Simenon, Quand j’étais vieux, Paris (Presses de la Cité), 1970, p. 398, entry of 18.11.1961 (Simenon 1970).

  34. 34.

    Ibid., pp. 387–388, entry of 24.9.1961.

  35. 35.

    Pierre Assouline, Simenon, Paris (Gallimard), 1996, p. 853. (Assouline 1996).

  36. 36.

    Georges Simenon, Mémoires intimes, Paris (France-Loisirs), 1981, pp. 457–458. (Simenon 1981).

  37. 37.

    Ibid., pp. 202–203 and 458.

  38. 38.

    Assouline, Simenon, p. 856.

  39. 39.

    Wershler-Henry, Iron Whim, p. 47.

  40. 40.

    Alex Goody, Technology, Literature and Culture, Cambridge, UK (Polity), 2011, pp. 109–110. (Goody 2011).

  41. 41.

    Carole Ferrier, ed., Point of Departure. The Autobiography of Jean Devanny, St Lucia, Queensland (University of Queensland Press), 1986, p. 83. (Ferrier 1986).

  42. 42.

    IBM Office Products Division, The Typewriter: An Informal History, 1977, at http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/modelb/modelb_informal.html, consulted 5.3.2014.

  43. 43.

    Roger Laufer, ‘La machine pour écrire’, in Peyrière, Machines à écrire, pp. 120–130.

  44. 44.

    Hermann Hesse, ‘Die Schreibmaschine’, März 4, 1908, pp. 377–378. (Hesse 1908).

  45. 45.

    Denis O’Driscoll, ‘Les Murray, The Art of Poetry, no. 89’, The Paris Review, no. 173, Spring 2005 (O’Driscoll 2005), consulted at http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5508/the-art-of-poetry-no-89-les-murray on 28.2.2014.

  46. 46.

    Viollet, ‘Écriture méchanique’, p. 205.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., p. 204.

  48. 48.

    David Marr, Patrick White: A Life, Sydney (Random House), 2008, p. 374. (Marr 2008).

  49. 49.

    Viollet, ‘Écriture méchanique’, p. 206.

  50. 50.

    Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, pp. 200–203.

  51. 51.

    Wershler-Henry, Iron Whim, p. 51.

  52. 52.

    James Edwin Miller jr., TS Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, 1888–1922, University Park, PA (Penn State University Press), 2005, p. 260 (Miller 2005), letter to Conrad Aiken, 21.8.1916.

  53. 53.

    Goody, Technology, Literature and Culture, pp. 111–112.

  54. 54.

    Theodora Bosanquet, Henry James at Work, with Excerpts from Her Diary and an Account of Her Professional Career, ed. Lyall H. Powers, Ann Arbor, MI (University of Michigan Press), 2006. (Bosanquet 2006).

  55. 55.

    Ibid., pp. 32–33.

  56. 56.

    Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, London (Abacus), 1974, p. 277. (McLuhan 1974).

  57. 57.

    Bosanquet, Henry James at Work, pp. 34–35; Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, p. 216.

  58. 58.

    Bosanquet, Henry James at Work, pp. 33–34.

  59. 59.

    Giulia Giuffré, A Writing Life: Interviews with Australian Women Writers, Sydney (Allen and Unwin), 1990, p. 155. (Giuffré 1990).

  60. 60.

    Ann Charters, ed., The Portable Beat Reader, London (Penguin), 1992, pp. 57–59. (Charters 1992).

  61. 61.

    Tim Hunt, Kerouac’s Crooked Road: Development of a Fiction, Berkeley, CA (University of California Press), 1981, pp. 112–113 (Hunt 1981).

  62. 62.

    Jack Kerouac, Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings, ed. Paul Marion, New York (Viking Penguin), 1999, p. 5 (Kerouac 1999). Atop an Underwood was dated 1941.

  63. 63.

    Ibid., pp. 28–29.

  64. 64.

    Ibid., pp. 165–166.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., pp. 153–154.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., pp. 167–168.

  67. 67.

    Wershler-Henry, Iron Whim, p. 241, citing John Clellon Holmes, Nothing More to Declare, New York (Dutton), 1967, pp. 78–79. (Holmes 1967).

  68. 68.

    Allen Ginsberg, Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays, 1952–1995, ed. Bill Morgan, New York (Harper) 2000, p. 342. (Ginsberg 2000).

  69. 69.

    Hunt, Kerouac’s Crooked Road, pp. 112–113; Wershler-Henry, Iron Whim, pp. 241–242.

  70. 70.

    Jack Kerouac, Letters, 1957–1969, ed. Ann Charters, New York (Viking Penguin), 1999, p. 461. (Kerouac 1999).

  71. 71.

    Hunt, Kerouac’s Crooked Road, pp. 112–113.

  72. 72.

    Kerouac, Letters, p. 395.

  73. 73.

    Wershler-Henry, Iron Whim, p. 243, citing Truman Capote in Gerald Nicosia, Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac, Berkeley, CA (University of California Press), 1994, p. 588 (Nicosia 1994).

  74. 74.

    Ferrier, Point of Departure, p. 83.

  75. 75.

    Ernest Hemingway, Selected Letters, 1917–1961, ed. Carlos Baker, New York (Granada), 1981, p. 45 (Hemingway 1981), letter to Grace Hall Hemingway (the author’s mother), 21.1.1921.

  76. 76.

    Patrick White, Flaws in the Glass, London (Vintage), 1981, pp. 133 and 158–159 (White 1981).

  77. 77.

    Bosanquet, Henry James at Work, p. 36.

  78. 78.

    Twain, ‘The First Writing-Machines’, p. 324.

  79. 79.

    Jack Kerouac, ‘Jack Kerouac, the Art of Fiction no. 41’, interviewed by Ted Berrigan, The Paris Review Interviews 43, 1968, at http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4260/the-art-of-fiction-no-41-jack-kerouac,consulted 5.3.2014 (Kerouac 1968).

  80. 80.

    McLuhan, Understanding Media, pp. 278–279.

  81. 81.

    http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/20/10-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-two, consulted 21 October 2014.

  82. 82.

    Viollet, ‘Écriture méchanique’, p. 207.

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  1. School of Humanities, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Martyn Lyons

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  1. University of New South Wales , Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Martyn Lyons

  2. Centro de Linguística, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Rita Marquilhas

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Lyons, M. (2017). QWERTYUIOP: How the Typewriter Influenced Writing Practices. In: Lyons, M., Marquilhas, R. (eds) Approaches to the History of Written Culture. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54136-5_11

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