TYPEWRITERSThe machine is at Bliss's, grimly pursuing its appointed mission, slowly
& implacably rotting away at another man's chances for salvation. |
One
of Mark Twain's typewriters, a Hammond model circa 1880, |
Please do not even divulge the fact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped
using the Type-Writer, for the reason that I never could write a letter with
it to anybody without receiving a request by return mail that I would not only
describe the machine but state what progress I had made in the use of it, etc.,
etc. I don't like to write letters, and so I don't want people to know that
I own this curiosity-breeding little joker.
- Letter, 3/19/1875
...I will now claim--until dispossessed--that I was the first person in the
world to apply the typewriter to literature...The early machine was full of
caprices, full of defects--devilish ones. It had as many immoralities as the
machine of today has virtues. After a year or two I found that it was degrading
my character, so I thought I would give it to Howells...He took it home to Boston,
and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered.
- "The First Writing Machines"
Remington Rand
typewriter ad featuring Mark Twain and his daughter,
Collier's Magazine, February 24, 1945
...[children] what are they in the world for I don't know, for they are of
no practical value as far as I can see. If I could beget a typewriter--but no,
our fertile days are over.
- Letter to W. D. Howells, May 12, 1899
 |
Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search
