The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting - Hardcover

Wershler-Henry, Darren

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801445868 ISBN 13: 9780801445866

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2007

Synopsis

The Iron Whim is an intelligent, irreverent, and humorous history of writing culture and technology. It covers the early history and evolution of the typewriter as well as the various attempts over the years to change the keyboard configuration, but it is primarily about the role played by this marvel in the writer's life. Darren Wershler-Henry populates his book with figures as disparate as Bram Stoker, Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, Norman Mailer, Alger Hiss, William Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Northrop Frye, David Cronenberg, and David Letterman; the soundtrack ranges from the industrial clatter of a newsroom full of Underwoods to the more muted tapping and hum of the Selectric.

Wershler-Henry casts a bemused eye on the odd history of early writing machines, important and unusual typewritten texts, the creation of On the Road, and the exploits of a typewriting cockroach named Archy, numerous monkeys, poets, and even a couple of vampires. He gathers into his narrative typewriter-related rumors and anecdotes (Henry James became so accustomed to dictating his novels to a typist that he required the sound of a randomly operated typewriter even to begin to compose). And by broadening his focus to look at typewriting as a social system as well as the typewriter as a technological form, he examines the fascinating way that the tool has actually shaped the creative process.

With engaging subject matter that ranges over two hundred years of literature and culture in English, The Iron Whim builds on recent interest in books about familiar objects and taps into our nostalgia for a method of communication and composition that has all but vanished.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"The Iron Whim should delight all who love typewriters and who appreciate the long, if somewhat rattly, contribution they have made to literacy and general culture."--Larry McMurtry

"The Iron Whim is a pure delight. This 'fragmented history of typewriting' provides fascinating glimpses into the history, culture, and poetics of the typewriter, that instrument that controlled our writing for so many decades and for which nostalgia is currently at a high point. Himself a poet and critic, Wershler-Henry recounts, with great panache, how the typewriter works of such writers as Henry James and Charles Olson were actually produced. The role of the amanuensis, the dictation process, the production and reception of typed text: all these topics, clearly and vividly detailed, ensure the wide reception The Iron Whim is sure to get. I cannot imagine a reader who would not find this book intriguing and compelling."--Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University, author of Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary

"I have been waiting years for just such a book on the cultural imagination of the typewriter, and Darren Wershler-Henry makes the wait well worthwhile. The Iron Whim combines historical rigor, theoretical sophistication, and an amazing breadth of literary knowledge from the canonical to the avant-garde--not to mention a palpable sense of mischievous fun. Wershler-Henry, one of today's most provocative scholars and poets, undertakes this medial archaeology with unerring precision: revealing the most surprising arcana to be central to our cultural history and making the most familiar facts of the modern writing machine seem suddenly new and strange and extravagantly unlikely. This book is necessary, intelligent, and fun."--Craig Dworkin, University of Utah, author of Reading the Illegible

"Who connects the typewriter with vampires, ghosts, sex, drugs, and money? Poet, theorist, and culture critic Wershler-Henry, has produced a surprising book that is nothing short of a cultural history of the complex writing machine. Richly researched, the text is composed with élan and wit. A must-read for students of contemporary literature, media studies, and anyone interested in the interconnections of modern life and technology."--Johanna Drucker, Robertson Professor of Media Studies, University of Virginia

From the Inside Flap:

The fascinating history of a writing culture and technology.
"The Iron Whim is an intelligent, irreverent, and humorous history that traces the haphazard trajectory of the typewriter's development and its various evolutionary dead ends.
Darren Wershler-Henry casts amusing light on the tricks of the first typewriter salesmen, important and unusual typewritten texts, the creation of On the Road, and the exploits of a typewriting cockroach named Archy, numerous monkeys, and even a couple of vampires. He turns his keen eye on typewriter-related rumours (does Thomas Mann's daughter really live on Canada's east coast with two golden retrievers who type on a machine built specifically for their use?) and anecdotes (Henry James became so accustomed to dictating his novels to a typist that he required the sound of a randomly operated typewriter even to begin to compose). And by broadening his focus to look at typewriting as well as the typewriter, he examines the fascinating way that the tool has actually shaped the creative process.
With engaging subject matter that ranges over two hundred years of literature and culture in English, "The Iron Whim builds on recent interest in books about familiar objects and taps into our nostalgia for a method of communicating that has all but vanished.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0801445868
• ISBN 13: 9780801445866
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 344