People don’t write stories about typewriters anymore. Even magical or haunted ones. It’s not surprising. In my collection The Book of the Black Sun I have one– and I’ll be honest, it bugs me. It dates the time period when I wrote “The Other Woman”. I wanted to do a Mythos story with the typewriter not producing the monster but being the monster. The Book of the Black Sun is now twenty-two years old. The story is at least five years older.
Which is all a way of saying: I’m going to talk about my old typewriters. I had three. My first was a broken portable I bought off a neighbor for five dollars. (Big money for a kid back in 1977!) I remember one of the first stories I wrote on that machine with its poorly repaired return arm. It hung down lower than it should and scraped a strip of paint off the metal top. That story was about a young girl who is upset by her parents, sees some flowers that remind her of them, and smashes them with her fist. When she gets home, her parents are bug-splat. Can you tell my early readings in Horror wasn’t Arthur Machen and H. P. Lovecraft but DC’s The House of Mystery?
My second machine was big. It had huge keys that you had to smack down with some real power. It took me years to get over that. I still type too strongly for laptops. By this time I was writing unsellable stories at a fair pace.
The last machine was an electric. I had always envied office workers who had these machines. Isaac Asimov talked way too much about his. I did not have it long because my next typewriter was a computer, a second hand Mac. And this was the technological step that changed my career. Cut-and-paste made editing so less physically intense and tedious, I was soon revising those awful first drafts into better second drafts. And typewriters were gone…
Fantasy and Horror writers have been writing tales about ghostly pens and other writing but the first typewriter appears to be The Enchanted Type-Writer by John Kendrick Bangs (1899). This collection of stories has a frame that has James Boswell in Hell sending stories to the narrator through an enchanted type-writer. It was an inventive way to tie these ten stories from Harper’s together with a little fantasy.
The Pulps certainly weren’t going to ignore the machines on which all those purple pages were produced.
“The Psychic Typewriter” by Robert Arthur as John West (Ghosts & Goblins, 1938) has a club of psychics and mediums join together to have a seance. A typewriter is used as a device to contact the dead. The spirit of a young woman warns one of those present of a grave danger.
“The Ghost Writer” by Robert Bloch (Weird Tales, May 1940) has two writers, Hawkins and Ayres. Hawkins is the creative talent and Ayres is a stealing hack. His lies cause Hawkins to kill himself. The dead man wills his typewriter to Ayres. The hack finds everything he writes sounds like Hawkins. We learn that Hawkins dabbled in the Black Arts. Ayres knows that his typewriter is haunted. By the end, he is dead too. The narrator, Bloch himself, swears off typewriters, and will write only with a pen.
“Typewriter in the Sky” by L. Ron Hubbard (Unknown Fantasy Fiction, November 1940) has Mike de Wolfe finding himself in a Horace Hackett adventure novel. Every time something important happens, Mike can hear the typewriter in the sky banging out the next paragraph. Some critics think L. Ron Hubbard was influenced by Luigi Pirandello’s 1921 play Six Characters in Search of an Author. Rod Serling would do his own riff with “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” (The Twilight Zone, December 22, 1961) where a soldier, a clown, a hobo, a ballet dancer and bagpiper find themselves in a strange room. By the end, we learn they are all dolls in a barrel. I prefer Fredric Brown’s What Mad Universe (1949) where a man ends up in a Sci-Fi fan’s universe.
“The Typewriter” (Fantastic, June 1955) by J. J. Allerton has a play that is using a typewriter as a prop (bought from a second-hand store, of course) but a young woman has a crazy delusion that she must find and possess it because it contained the spirit of her dead mother. For more on J. J. Allerton’s short career, go here.
“A World of His Own” on The Twilight Zone (July 1, 1960) by Richard Mathson plays with the idea of writer as god of his own little world. Keenan Wynne is Gregory West, a playwright who creates two wives from his imagination. Sparks fly when they run into each other.
The comics weren’t going to leave the idea of ghost writers and haunted typewriters alone. It particular we will see L. Ron Hubbard and Robert Bloch’s idea re-used. As usual, many authors are unknown but we provide them where possible.
“The Ghost Writer” (Adventures Into the Unknown #21, July 1951) has a newspaperman getting news stories from a ghost. The story leads Hank Evans into a plot to impersonate Harold Random, a millionaire. The ghost gives Evans clues to solve the case and clear his name.
“The Mystery of the Magic Typewriter!” (Wonder Woman #49, September-October 1951) was written by Robert Kanigher as Charles Moulton. A leprechaun causes people to write cryptic messages on a typewriter. These lead WW to a gang of crooks. That opening panel suggests Wonder Woman fill fight the leprechauns on a giant typewriter but no deal. A later DC hero will have an actual fight on a giant typewriter, and not in the Golden Age.
“Ghost Writer” (House of Mystery #9, December 1952) has a comedian kill his ghost writer because he wants full credit. Later a circle of ghosts drive him to confess. Turns out they are just the cast of the show rehearsing a ghost sketch.
“Wanted: Ghost Writer” (The Beyond #18, January 1953) has a ghost writer find a job with a weird-looking guy in a mask. The stories Jerry Vincent writes come true, usually with a horrible catastrophe. In the end, he finds out he is working for DEATH! (Who, of course, pulls off his mask and reveals his icky face.)
“The Magic Typewriter!” (Strange Adventures #31, April 1953) was written by Sam Merwin. A lowly secretary blacks out and finds on her typewriter the science for anti-gravy. She is actually the daughter of a nuclear scientist and plans to broadcast to the world her plans. Suddenly she loses her memory and goes back to the typing pool. This one was written by an old SF writer/editor, Sam Merwin Jr. who wrote a few comics for DC at the end of his career.
“Ghost Writer!” (House of Mystery #19, October 1953) has Ralph Desmond, a writer of 17th Century adventure novels admit the story was dictated to him by spirits from that era. He is regarded as a lunatic. Desmond tries to prove how he reached back in time. His second book explaining this is a great hit. Everybody thinks it is a Science Fiction novel.
“The Telepathic Typewriter” (Uncanny Tales #42, April 1956) has a writer buy a five dollar typewriter from a used shop. The machine produces a vibrant story of Arctic treasure. The author can actual enter the scenes depicted. When he gets to the scene with the treasure he tries to take it. His greed destroys the magic typewriter.
“The Fantastic Typewriter!” (House of Secrets #18, March 1959) begins with a writer taking his typewriter into a magic cave. This causes whatever he writes to appear. He writes about Hannibal. Warriors appear and threaten him. By typing END OF CHAPTER the scene is paused. The man and his friend throw the typewriter into the sea, never finishing the book.
“The Ghost of Lois Lane” (Superman #129, May 1959) was written by Jerry Coleman. This one is really a tale of how Sup saves Lois from being a ghost. But it begin and ends with Lois typing messages on her typewriter.
“Beyond the Solar System” (Casper Space Ship #2, October 1972) has writer Remington Underwood (Two famous brands of typewriters for those who don’t know) but I think he looks more like a young Stephen King. His magic typewriter takes him and Casper on a lengthy space adventure.
“The Ghost-Writer!” (House of Secrets #108, June 1973) was written by Bill Riley. Godfrey is a super-rich writer with a ghost in Mr. Armand. Godfrey becomes paranoid that Armand will “out” him so he shoots him. Armand gets up and explains he is already dead. He really is a ghost writer. Godfrey’s hair turns white and he ends up on the skids.
“The Ghost Writer” (Ghost Manor #22, March 1975) was written by Nick Cuti. A one-pager telling how Thomas P. James finished Charles Dickens The Mystery of Edwin Drood with help from the grave. Arthur Conan Doyle gave it his stamp of approval. Thanks, Artie.
“Deadshot Ricochet” (Detective Comics #474, December 1977) was written by Steve Englehart. Well, here is that superhero having a fight on a giant typewriter at last. Batman faces off against Deadshot on a giant Selectra. No real reason, just a cool place to fight. Great Marshall Rogers art as always.
“My Ghost Writer the Vampire” (Unexpected #197, April 1980) was written by Scott Edelman. Preston Vaughn is a Horror writer who doesn’t believe. He is writing The Death and Times of Count Alucard. (Well, any old film buffs know that name.) Vaughn takes on a real vamp as a ghost writer then has to get rid of him. He thinks he has succeeded by using silver but the count isn’t put down so easily.
Conclusion
Ghost writers in the sky! The term “ghost writer” is just too tempting and obvious a phrase not to appeal to Horror writers. The typewriter is so often pulled into the play being the primary tool of writers up until the 1990s. I shouldn’t feel too bad about my tale. There are other writers who have made similar choices. David Morrell, for instance, had a Horror piece called “The Typewriter” in Charles Grant’s Gallery of Horror (1983). (Now, I haven’t read this story until I wrote this post, so it had no influence on me back in the 1980s. In fact, every story in this post is new to me.) Morrell has a writer buy an old typewriter in a junk shop, then goes onto become a millionaire with the first book he writes on it. But the money fades quickly and he needs to write another. Only the machine is broken. He struggles to get it fixed but the machine is evil and reduces him to writing Dick and Jane books.
That’s quite different than my story. the opening is similar but Morrell isn’t interested in monsters the way I am. (Or Grant the editor.) He doesn’t have the machine thumping around the house while the protagonist is hiding in the bathroom, sending in its black and red ribbon under the door to strangle her. So no matter how old this idea is, 1899 as a starting place, I think my tale has something unique to it. At least I hope so.
I will be writing no more typewriter tales. People don’t write stories about typewriters anymore.
