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Author Lyons, Martyn, author.

Title The typewriter century : a cultural history of writing practices / Martyn Lyons
Published Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, [2021]
©2021

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Description 1 online resource (x, 261 pages) : illustrations
Series Studies in book and print culture
Studies in book and print culture.
Contents Introduction: The Typewriter as an Agent of Change? -- The Birth of the Typosphere -- Modernity and the "Typewriter Girl" -- The Modernist Typewriter -- The Distancing Effect: The Hand, the Eye, the Voice -- The Romantic Typewriter -- Manuscript and Typescript -- Georges Simenon: The Man in the Glass Cage -- Erle Stanley Gardner: The Fiction Factory -- Domesticating the Typewriter -- The End of the Typewriter Century and Post-Digital Nostalgia
Summary "This book captures the intensity of the relationship between writers and their typewriters from the 1880s, when the machine was first commercialized, to the 1980s, when word-processing superseded it. Drawing on examples from the United States, Britain, Europe, and Australia, The Typewriter Century focuses on "celebrity writers," including Henry James, Jack Kerouac, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, and Erle Stanley Gardner, who wrote prolifically and mechanically, developing routines in which typing, handwriting, and dictation were each allotted important functions. The typewriter de-personalized the text; the office typewriter bureaucratized it. At the same time, some authors found a new and disturbing distance between themselves and their compositions while others believed the typewriter facilitated spontaneous and automatic typing. The Typewriter Century provides a cultural history of the typewriter, outlining the ways in which it can be considered an agent of change as well as demonstrating how it influenced all writers, canonical and otherwise."-- Provided by publisher
Analysis Agatha Christie
Enid Blyton
Erle Stanley Gardner
Georges Simenon
Henry James
Jack Kerouac
history of technology
history of writing practices
manuscript culture
nostalgia
pulp fiction
typewriter
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-255) and index
Notes In English
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on February 15, 2021)
Subject Typewriters -- History
Typewriters -- Social aspects
Typewriting -- History
LITERARY CRITICISM / Books & Reading
Typewriters
Typewriting
Genre/Form Electronic books
History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781487537838
1487537832
9781487537821
1487537824