Typewriters Used by Famous Authors
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Typewriters Used by Famous Authors — Daily trivia Friday, June 26, 2026: questions and answers
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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
Kerouac typed the first draft on a 120-foot scroll he made by cutting tracing-paper sheets to size and taping them together, single-spaced with no margins or paragraph breaks. He got through it in three weeks in April 1951.
Q 02Which typewriter brand did Ernest Hemingway famously use while writing many of his novels?
- AOlivetti
- BUnderwood
- CRemington
- DRoyal
Show answer
Royal
Hemingway was known to favor Royal typewriters throughout his career, using them in his home in Key West and while traveling. The Royal became iconic in literary circles as the machine of choice for serious writers.
Q 03On which portable typewriter, bought in 1963, did Cormac McCarthy type nearly all his work?
- AHermes 3000
- BOlivetti Lettera 32
- CRoyal Quiet De Luxe
- 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 of 1883 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 simultaneously in Britain and the United States in 1883, was the first book manuscript submitted to a publisher as typescript. Twain did not type it himself — a typist worked from his handwritten pages.
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 3000 machines came predominantly in a light green often called mint or sea-foam. Plath typed The Bell Jar on one in 1962, and Sam Shepard and Stephen Fry have been devotees too.
Q 07In which university library basement did Bradbury type the novella that became Fahrenheit 451?
- AStanford
- BUSC
- CUCLA
- DCaltech
Show answer
UCLA
The 25,000-word draft, then titled 'The Fireman', took him nine days at Powell Library, where he wrote surrounded by students feeding dimes into the coin-operated machines.
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
Show answer
Institute for the deaf
The philosopher never really mastered his Writing Ball, though he managed about 60 typescripts on it and even wrote it a poem, musing that 'our writing instruments contribute to our thoughts'.
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 The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms word for word to absorb their rhythms?
- AHunter S. Thompson
- BWilliam S. Burroughs
- CNorman Mailer
- DTruman Capote
Show answer
Hunter S. Thompson
He did it while working at Time magazine in the late 1950s, years before Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas made his own rhythm famous.
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