Well, you’re in luck! After 46 years, Cormac McCarthy’s Olivetti Lettera 32 will be auctioned by Christie’s on December 4th. According to the man himself:
“It has never been serviced or cleaned other than blowing out the dust with a service station hose. … I have typed on this typewriter every book I have written including three not published.”
While it might not work very well (if at all), just remember that this is the typewriter on which every McCarthy novel (including All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain, Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men, and The Road), short story, play, screenplay, draft, and correspondence was typed. Purchased for $50 in a Tennessee pawnshop in 1963, it is expected to sell for $15,000-$20,000. Proceeds will go to the Sante Fe Institute.
And don’t worry – Cormac McCarthy will now be typing on a “new used” Olivetti that his friend bought on eBay for $9 (plus $20 for shipping).
