Just a little addendum to last week’s blog entry about Cormac McCarthy. The typewriter (Olivetti Lettera 32) with which he typed all his novels from 1958 to 2009 just sold at a Christie’s auction for $254,500. At the age of 25 McCarthy bought it in a pawnshop in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he grew up. After typing on it for over 50 years, apparently a couple of months ago it started to show some signs of abrasion. His friend John Miller bought him the exact same model in excellent condition for a bargain $11. The quarter of a million dollars that an anonymous buyer paid for the old model will go to the non-profit Santa Fe Institute.
