Douglas Adams abused his X key

Published by neil on July 13th, 2008

AbeBooks have quite a unique item listed for sale right now: A first edition paperback of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, plus Douglas Adams’ typewriter.

[The typewriter] bears an anti-apartheid sticker on one side of the object and is boldly signed across the front casing by Adams in his unmistakeable hand. It comes housed in its cardboard box which Adams used to transport it, namely packaging from Simon and Schuster, originally containing copies of Adams and Terry Jones’ collaboration ‘Starship Titanic’. An address label to Adams’ office at the Digital Village, London, remains stuck on the box too.

The most interesting part of the description is this:

The keys of his typewriter all still bear the marks of Adams’ tortured labour. Significantly, the ‘x’ key is particularly discoloured.

The only thought I have is that he skipped past words or passages to return to them later. I have heard a number of writers who on coming across a potential block, simply enter a long string of X’s to visibly mark the place to which they need to return. It helps to avoid stalling the workflow altogether on just a minor point, coming back to it once there has been time to give it more thought.

I’m not the collector type, but this would be a remarkable item to own. Now all I need is to find just under $27k - keep using my GoDaddy codes, people!

Tags: cool, History, memorabilia
Posted in Cool Stuff, Table Rappers |