What Pens Did/do Famous Writers Use?

[Cob]

Colette's first FP looks to me like a safety because of the relatively small nib and it seems at the end is a small cap. The second FP looks to me like a lever filler.

Yes it seems that safety pens were very popular in France, they keep turniing up over there.

 

Cob

[jebib111]

Tony Kushner's gave a lecture on Angels in America at the University of Toledo many, many moons ago. I know for a fact at that time he used a Pelikan 300 because he signed one of his books for me. He also said that he really liked Pelikans too!

[NewPenMan]

Any one know what pens famous writers used? You always hear of Mark Twain and Conklins, but what about Joyce, Kerouac, Yeats, Nabokov, Mann, Hemingway or any number of greats. Kind of a real Writers Edition list.

Kerouac banged out On The Road on a Hermes typewriter..continuous roll of paper which he taped together. I'd be curious to know which pens he used, if any..I wonder are some writers pen-users and others typewriter users, as in 2 different camps?

[Gorpy]

According to Conklin, Mark Twain used a Conklin crescent-filler pen and loved it. Probably true that he used one and liked it, but I think he might have been paid to say that.

[Cryptos]

Mary Wiggins used a fountain pen... she will always be famous to me!

[bjh13]

Michael Moorcock is fan of Sheaffer, but as of 2005 was using a Waterman with the finest nib he could find so he could use it in small Moleskine books. He mentioned a few years ago that he kept forgetting to take them out of his shirt pocket when he would fly and because of this all of his jackets inner linings were stained with ink.

[I.M.]

... He mentioned a few years ago that he kept forgetting to take them out of his shirt pocket when he would fly and because of this all of his jackets inner linings were stained with ink.

Maybe he should try putting them in with the cap facing up! (And to be extra safe, his seat in the upright position )

[visvamitra]

Yoon Ha Lee author of Ninefox Gambit wrote a draft of her novel with fountain pen (Webster Four-Star with an extra-fine nib and a Waterman 52V).

[Drawing61]

Oliver Sacks used a Montblanc.

[sandy101]

Tom Stoppard and Anthony Horowitz use Caaran d'Ache Madisons.

Edited July 26, 2017 by sandy101

[Freddy]

Harlen is still at it @ eighty three years young....................follow the...........

 

Fred

 

"The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity."

 

~ Harlen J. Ellison

[Freddy]

......................................................look above..............................................

 

Fred

Edited July 26, 2017 by Freddy

[qvxb]

Photos of Mickey Spillane show him seated at a typewriter, but I'll bet the pen he used was a ballpoint. You can write with it and use it to stab a gangster or a Communist.

[penznmaine]

https://www.thegentlemansjournal.com/article/pens-worlds-famous-authors/

[Vintagepens]

Unfortunately, that article is completely unreliable. A few facts embedded in a morass of invented falsehoods, illustrated by randomly-chosen images most of which are of modern pens only very loosely connected to the pens discussed in the text.

 

https://www.thegentlemansjournal.com/article/pens-worlds-famous-authors/

[virgilio]

Re Fluegelfeder's post 19 Jan 2011, for those who do not read German, Hesse said: "Many thanks for the repaired fountain pen. Unfortunately it is now a little broader; it used to be an estra-fine. But I am not what I used to either, so I am satisfied with it all the same."

[virgilio]

LEGE extra FOR estra & used to be either FOR used to either

 

In reading over these posts I find to my surprise that this text has already been translated by someone else. Compare the two translations and you will see that translations DO vary, just as human personalities.

[Donald2]

They say that the writers who wrote "Behind the Green Door" and "Deep Throat" used a Waterman fountain pen to write the script.

[Freddy]

They say that the writers who wrote "Behind the Green Door" and "Deep Throat" used a Waterman fountain pen to write the script.

They also say that they taped the pens to fingers so they can write.........

Fred

[AAAndrew]

As was mentioned in an earlier comment, Shelby Foote wrote the initial draft of his 3000+ page epic history of the American Civil War with a dip pen. Specifically, he used an Esterbrook #313 Probate, a rather broad (what they used to call "coarse") stub dip pen.

 

He pulled a "Charles Shultz" when he found out that Esterbrook was no longer making them. He raided an old stationery store in New York City and bought ever one they had. (Shultz did the same for the Esterbrook 914 which is what he used to ink every Peanuts comic strip). Esterbrook made the 313 from its introduction in 1883 all the way through until the end of all dip pen production in the early 1950's.

 

Here's what a page of his manuscript looks like.