Last year, I acquired a Brother 7900 electric typewriter, as seen in the first picture. This is not just any typewriter: this is the typewriter on which The Colour of Magic was written: the origin point of Discworld.
The typewriter was acquired from Sir Terry by a friend of his, who then kept it in his garage for getting on for 40 years before it reached me. Understandably it was completely seized up, but after quite a bit of research and work it has now been restored to full working order. I felt something more had to be done with it than simply put it on display, for people to look
On November 24th - the anniversary of the publication of The Colour of Magic - the typewriter will be on display - and available for use - at The Crow Road Bookshop in Arundel, West Sussex.
For a donation to one of Sir Terry's charities any fan* will be able to type, on the keyboard that Sir Terry used, a note or quotation on specially printed notepaper (as seen in the second photo) to do, well, whatever they want to do with it.
I hope this meets with everyone's approval, and I hope that this will become a regular event - perhaps twice a year. I couldn't in all conscience use this for making a profit, but I wanted fans to have the opportunity to interact with something so foundational to the works we love.
* I mean, I'm not excluding non-fans, but I'm guessing there won't be too many of those queuing to use a typewriter used by an author they're not bothered about.
The typewriter was acquired from Sir Terry by a friend of his, who then kept it in his garage for getting on for 40 years before it reached me. Understandably it was completely seized up, but after quite a bit of research and work it has now been restored to full working order. I felt something more had to be done with it than simply put it on display, for people to look
On November 24th - the anniversary of the publication of The Colour of Magic - the typewriter will be on display - and available for use - at The Crow Road Bookshop in Arundel, West Sussex.
For a donation to one of Sir Terry's charities any fan* will be able to type, on the keyboard that Sir Terry used, a note or quotation on specially printed notepaper (as seen in the second photo) to do, well, whatever they want to do with it.
I hope this meets with everyone's approval, and I hope that this will become a regular event - perhaps twice a year. I couldn't in all conscience use this for making a profit, but I wanted fans to have the opportunity to interact with something so foundational to the works we love.
* I mean, I'm not excluding non-fans, but I'm guessing there won't be too many of those queuing to use a typewriter used by an author they're not bothered about.
