Typewriter Century

Martyn Lyons is an emeritus professor of History & European Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

"Well written and really entertaining, with numerous interesting individual findings, Martyn Lyons' book provides a useful introduction to a complex field of research."- Kim Christian Priemal, University of Oslo (H-Soz-Kult) "This is a useful study of the complex impacts of the typewriter on the practices of different writers in the twentieth century. It contextualizes existing research approaches to this set of questions effectively and offers original insights into the history of the typewriter as a technology and its interactions with the social position of writers and the market for published literary works." - Morag Shiach, Queen Mary University of London (Journal of British Studies) "With so many technological changes in our lives, the typewriter has become a clear symbol of the transformation from manual to digital technology. In The Typewriter Century, Martyn Lyons plays homage to this once cherished tool of authors, tracing its history from an eighteenth-century ‘writing machine’ to the post-digital age. Along the way, he recounts how famous authors felt about their typewriters, and how changes in the typewriter also changed the writing process itself, not always for the better."- Gretchen Webster (Publishing Research Quarterly) "The Typewriter Century is clearly the result of extensive research but that does not inhibit the prose, which is very engaging. This book will interest scholars concerned with the means of production, and it will also appeal to general readers who are curious about the history of technology and writing."- Alice Grundy, Australian National University (SHARP News) "This book will be of interest to historians of typewriters and office work and a wider audience curious about the writing practices of some of the most legendary authors since the 1880s." - James Inglis (Technology and Culture)

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgments1. Introduction: The Typewriter as an Agent of Change?2. The Birth of the Typosphere 3. Modernity and the Typewriter Girl4. The Modernist Typewriter5. The Distancing Effect: The Hand, the Eye, the Voice6. The Romantic Typewriter7. Manuscript and Typescript8. Georges Simenon: The Man in the Glass Cage9. Erle Stanley Gardner: The Fiction Factory10. Domesticating the Typewriter 11. The End of the Typewriter Century and Post-Digital NostalgiaBibliography Index