Typewriters used by famous authors
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Typewriters Used by Famous Authors — Daily trivia Friday, June 26, 2026: questions and answers
All 10 questions with answers and explanations. Play this daily
Q 01Which author typed 'On the Road' on a continuous roll of paper?
- AJack Kerouac
- BLawrence Ferlinghetti
- CWilliam S. Burroughs
- DAllen Ginsberg
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Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac taped tracing-paper sheets into a 120-foot scroll and typed the draft single-spaced, with no margins or paragraph breaks, in three weeks in April 1951.
Q 02Which typewriter brand did Ernest Hemingway famously use while writing many of his novels?
- AAdler
- BUnderwood
- CRemington
- DRoyal
Show answer
Royal
Hemingway wrote on Royal typewriters such as the Quiet De Luxe, a model many other writers of his era also used.
Q 03On which portable typewriter did Cormac McCarthy type nearly all his work?
- AHermes 3000
- BOlivetti Lettera 32
- CAdler Tippa
- DSmith-Corona Skyriter
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Olivetti Lettera 32
McCarthy stayed with a single Olivetti Lettera 32 for his whole career, eventually buying a tidier one of the same model for $11. The original went to an American collector at Christie's on 4 December 2009 for $254,500.
Q 04Which book was the first ever handed to a publisher as a typewritten manuscript?
- AThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- BTreasure Island
- CLife on the Mississippi
- DThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Show answer
Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, published in 1883, was the first book manuscript submitted to a publisher as typescript, though Twain did not type it himself.
Q 05Who turned Fitzgerald's pencil manuscript of The Great Gatsby into the typescript his publisher received?
- AHis wife Zelda
- BHis editor Max Perkins
- CFitzgerald himself
- DA hired secretary
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A hired secretary
Fitzgerald never learned to type, so a secretary prepared the typescript from his 302-page pencil manuscript, which he finished in France by September 1924.
Q 06What colour is the Hermes 3000 typewriter, used by Sylvia Plath and Eugene Ionesco?
- AMatte black
- BPale mint green
- CDeep burgundy
- DCream white
Show answer
Pale mint green
Hermes 3000s mostly came in a pale mint green, sometimes called sea-foam, and Sylvia Plath typed her only novel, The Bell Jar, on one.
Q 07In which university library basement did Bradbury type the novella that became Fahrenheit 451?
- AStanford
- BUSC
- CUCLA
- DCaltech
Show answer
UCLA
At UCLA's Powell Library, Bradbury rented a basement typewriter for ten cents per half hour and wrote the 25,000-word 'The Fireman' in nine days.
Q 08Rasmus Malling-Hansen, inventor of the 'writing ball' typewriter Nietzsche used, ran what kind of institution?
- AAstronomical observatory
- BTelegraph exchange
- CMilitary academy
- DInstitute for the deaf
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Institute for the deaf
Malling-Hansen was principal of Copenhagen's Royal Institute for the Deaf-Mutes from 1865, the same year he invented his writing ball.
Q 09On which make of standard desk typewriter has Danielle Steel written every one of her novels?
- AAdler
- BOlympia
- CTriumph
- DErika
Show answer
Olympia
Her machines are Olympia SG1 standards; in a 2019 Guardian interview she described stretches of 20 to 30 hours at the keyboard.
Q 10Which writer typed out passages of The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms to absorb their rhythms?
- AHunter S. Thompson
- BWilliam S. Burroughs
- CNorman Mailer
- DTruman Capote
Show answer
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson did it while working as a copy boy at Time magazine, years before Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas made his own rhythm famous.
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