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'Wilde' Typewriter on Reading Goal Wall?
An artwork bearing the hallmarks of famous British street artist Banksy has appeared on the side of Reading Prison. The picture shows a prisoner - possibly resembling famous inmate Oscar Wilde -...
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Fixing Typewriters Talk
My first presentation on running repairs for typewriters was given this morning to staff at the Museum of Australian Democracy in Canberra. The museum now has more typewriters than any other national...
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While My IBM 'Action Writer' Gently Types
With apologies to George Harrison and his Sweet Lord (typed in what felt like a cross-fire hurricane, and this thing is as slow as a wet week! It's also a throwback to the days [1874-1894] of blind...
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Speedy Sandé Stollnitz Stayed Staunch, but Remington’s Self-Starters Couldn’t...
To Mark International Women’s Day(This was part of Google's IWD Doodle video)The superstars of speed typewriting are high among my favourite blog subjects, as long-time followers of ozTypewriter will...
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Typing to Success: Pretty Polly Devlin
In 1963, a 21-year-old Polly Devlin was living a sedate life in the village of Ardboe, beside Lough Neagh in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, just west of Belfast. There were no telephones and no...
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Lowell Yerex: Flying Ace the Son of a Typewriter Gun
Somebody has, with a great deal of justification, put up the idea that there should be a film made about the New Zealand-born aviator Lowell Yerex, the Indiana Jones of the Central American skies....
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Writers, Their Typewriters, and Their Work Space
In 2007-08, award-winning British photographer Eamonn McCabe took for TheGuardian newspaper a series of pictures of the working spaces of writers. The writers contributed suitable words to go with the...
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Vital Part Played by Typewriters in the Irish War of Independence
Kathleen McKenna. centre, was “a key force behind the Irish Bulletin”. We’re coming up to the centenary of “The Great Dublin Typewriter Heist”, in which the “dirty tricks” section of the British Army...
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As Good as it Gets - Ann Patchett’s Beautiful Typewriter Story: ‘She Thought...
"What I had didn’t surprise me half as much as how I felt about it". Illustration by Karlotta FreierA beautifully written 'Personal History' by Ann Patchett in the March 8 New Yorker, headed "How to...
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Typing Sci-Fi in the Shadow of Samuel Johnson
Did anything rub off on to Herbert Woodend Clock when he slept in Samuel Johnson’s old room at Pembroke College, Oxford University? Well, to be honest, it was no longer exactly Dr Johnson’s old room by...
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A 'Blott' on the Literary Landscape: Where Are Tom Sharpe's 17 Typewriters?
English satirical novelist Tom Sharpe once said that he hoped to die at his typewriter. These were words, apparently, he aped from his friend and hero P.G. Wodehouse. Whether either Shape or Wodehouse...
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An Oliver Twist: How Does a Patria Become an Oliver Byron? A Tale of Two...
David Lawrence, New Zealand’s ‘Mr Typewriter’, now “on the road” since Eden Typewriters moved out of Mount Eden in Auckland at the end of last year, has continued to keep his finger on the pulse of the...
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How Typewriters Liberated the Child Genius for Winifred Sackville Stoner
It’s almost a century since the innovative educator who called herself Dr Winifred Sackville Stoner told Brooklyn journalist Laura R. Wilkie, “Take Tommie’s toy soldier away from him and give him some...
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1889 Writers and their Views on Using Typewriters
Typewriters were still considered “newfangled” machines in 1889 when stenographer Sylvan Brooks Phillips (1866-1944), of Portland, Maine, writing for The Phonographic World, canvassed leading authors...
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Typewriters in the News
Another typewriter has appeared on a wall in Reading, England, just three weeks after the now world famous Banksy mural was spotted at Reading Gaol. This new black-and-white stencilled image looks...
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March 1921: Remington Was Self-Destructing When its Portable Typewriter Saved...
That the triumph of its four-bank portable saved the Remington Typewriter Company from self-destructing in 1921-22 is evident from The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of 21 months of bitter boardroom...
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ozTypewriter Reaches 4.5 Million
ozTypewriter has just reached 4.5 million page views, a long-awaited target which, not so long ago, I thought wouldn’t be attained until May. It has arrived one month after the blog marked 10 years,...
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RIP Larry McMurtry (1936-2021)
The legendary Larry McMurtry has passed away at the age of 84. He died on Thursday at his home in Archer City, Texas. Typewriter lovers will forever salute him for his acceptance speech at the 2006...
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Typewriters in the Sky
A woman alights from a Westland Limousine with a Royal 10 typewriter in July 1919.This blog has shown in the past few months that Britain can lay claim to very few “firsts” in typewriter history. But...
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What The ....
David Lawrence sent me links to these TradeMe listings in New Zealand today. We're both confused:This is the only hint I could find, on an Australian site:Also on TradeMe:Meanwhile, a Smith-Corona...
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