First Published in 1973, The Writing Machine presents a comprehensive history of the typewriter. Michael Adler not only investigated the history of the machine but also started collecting typewriters, because of the difficulty of discovering what these old machines looked like. Then he found there were other collectors all over the world who supplied him with such a wealth of data that he had eventually to limit the scope of his ‘history’. There are hundreds and hundreds of makes and models of ‘conventional’ front-stroke, type bar machines with four-row keyboards, but they were virtually all the same. It is the unconventional ones that are interesting, and it is on these that the author concentrates.
The book is amusing as well as informative, and it ends with a complete catalogue of ‘unconventional’ typewriters manufactured up to the 1930s, when the ‘conventional’ machine had become universal. This book is a must read for anyone interested to learn about the writing machine.
Acknowledgements Introduction Bibliography 1. On Writing Machines in General 2. Typewriter Prehistory and Mechanical Monsters, 1714-1806 3. Evolutionary Progress, 1808-50 4. The Beginnings of Production, 1851-67 5. On Claimants, Pretenders… 6. …and National Heroes 7. Some Critical Evaluations 8. Pioneers and Others, from 1874 Onwards 9. Technical Classification of Early Machines 10. Some Further Technical Considerations 11. Special Purpose Writing Machines 12. Complete Catalogue of Unconventional Typewriters Appendices Abbreviations Used in Text Index
Biography
Michael H. Adler
