Mark Twain Wrote the First E book Ever Written With a Typewriter

My Pen­guin Clas­sics copy of Mark Twain’s Life on the Mis­sis­sip­pi sits alone atop an over­full shelf. There’s a ebook­mark on web page 204, precise­ly midway by way of, torn from an in-flight duty-free catalog—whiskey and fan­cy pens. It tells me “hey, you for­received to fin­ish this, you [var­i­ous obscen­i­ties].” And I shrug. What can I say? I went to grad faculty, the place I discovered to learn ten books without delay and nev­er fin­ish one. Good factor Mark Twain didn’t write that approach, or we would not have Life on the Mis­sis­sip­pi.

Twain was a dili­gent and con­sci­en­tious author with a mem­o­ry like a bear lure, or at the least that’s what he need­ed us to suppose. However some­the place in his rem­i­nis­cence he might have been con­fused. Twain wrote in his 1904 auto­bi­og­ra­phy that his first nov­el writ­ten on a kind­author—the primary kind­writ­ten nov­el in any respect—was Tom Sawyer.

Was this so? Twain pur­chased his first kind­author (which prob­a­bly appeared just like the Sholes and Glid­den seen right here) in 1874 for $125. In 1875, he writes in a let­ter to the Rem­ing­ton com­pa­ny that he’s now not utilizing his kind­author; it cor­rupts his morals as a result of it makes him need to swear. He provides the infer­nal machine away, twice. It returns to him every time.

The 12 months after Twain’s ethical trou­ble along with his Rem­ing­ton, Tom Sawyer is pub­lished from hand­writ­ten man­u­script, not typed. Then, sev­en years lat­er, Life on the Mis­sis­sip­pi (1883) involves the pub­lish­er in kind­script. Twain didn’t kind it himself—he had pre­sum­ably renounced the act—however he dic­tat­ed the mem­oir to a typ­ist from a hand­writ­ten draft. Now, I can hear you quib­bling…  Life on the Mis­sis­sip­pi isn’t a nov­el in any respect! Effectively, okay, honest sufficient. Let’s simply say it’s the primary kind­writ­ten ebook and name it a day, eh? Go learn this excel­lent New York­er piece on the ear­ly lifetime of the sort­author and go away me alone. I’ve received a ebook to fin­ish.

Be aware: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this put up appeared on our web site in 2013.

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