I found this about HP Lovecraft, on the fountain pen network : The following is an excerpt from Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside, by Frank Belknap Long, a close friend of Lovecraft's. Howard was fascinated by small articles of stationery -- writing pads, rubber bands of assorted sizes, phials of India ink, unusual letterheads, erasers, mechanical pencils, and particularly fountain pens. He used one pen, chosen with the most painstaking care, until it wore out, and several important factors entered into his purchase of a writing instrument. It had to have just the right kind of ink flow, molding itself to his hand in such a way that he was never conscious of the slightest strain as he filled page after page with his often minute calligraphy. It also had to be a black Waterman; a pen of another color or make would have been unthinkable. When a pen he had used for several years wore out, the purchase of a new one became an event -- lamentable in some respects, but presenting a challenge which I am sure he secretly enjoyed. We were walking northward from Battery Park [NYC], where I had met him at noon, stopping occasionally to admire one of the very old houses which still could be found scattered throughout the financial district in the 1920s, when he told me that he intended to purchase a new pen at the first stationery store that had a well-stocked reliable appearance. He removed the old one from his vest pocket and showed me how worn the point had become. I found myself wondering just how many letters and postcards he had written with it, for it did have a ground-down aspect. We walked on for three or four blocks, found the kind of store he had in mind, and I accompanied him inside. The clerk who waited on him was amiable and greeted him with a smile when he asked to try out a number of pens. "The point has to be just right," Howard said. "If it won't put you to too much inconvenience, I'd like to test out at least twenty pens." The clerk's smile did not vanish when Howard turned to me and said, "I'm afraid this will take some time." It was just a guess, but I felt somehow that he had made the kind of understatment that would strain the clerk's patience almost beyond endurance. "We just passed a pipe store," I said. "I'd like to go back and look at the window again. I may just possibly decide to buy a new pipe. I can be back in fifteen or twenty minutes." "No need to hurry," he said. "I'll probably be here much longer than that." I was gone for forty-five minutes. It was inexcusable, I suppose, but it was a clear, bright day, a wind with a the tang of the sea was blowing in from one of the East River wharves where several four-masted sailing ships were tied, and I decided to go for quite a long walk instead of returning to the pipe shop. When I got back to the stationery store, there were at least fifty pens lying about on the counter and Howard was still having difficulty in finding one with just the right balance and smoothness of ink flow. The clerk looked a little haggard-eyed but he was still smiling, wanly. The careful choice of a fountain pen may sweem a minor matter and hardly one that merits dwelling on at considerable length. But to me it has always seemed a vtally important key to the basic personality of HPL in more than one respect. He liked small objects of great beauty, symmetrical in design and superbly crafted, and by the same token larger objects that exhibited a similar kind of artistic perfection. And the raven-black Waterman he finally selected was both somber and non-ornate, with not even a small gold band encircling it. That appealed to him in another way and was entirely in harmony with his choice of attire.
On one of my trips to London, I was delighted to see a hand-written, hand-edited manuscript of my favorite novel, Middlemarch. I don’t know if it was written with a fountain pen. It was published in 1871-2, so I guess it’s possible? At any rate, hats off to those early novelists who wrote without benefit of Microsoft, IBM Selectric, Wite-Out, or Smith Corona. It’sa wonder we have any Classics at all!
Already my second time arching this video. I love how letters are the things that last through the years and give us a real insight into how a person was thinking.
I bet Waterman would love to help track down the second pen (they may still have records dating back that far!). I'd love to see them launch a special edition for today's writers if they can help you track it down
Wow, Tim!!! I love this kind of video. As a theologian, I am constantly playing detective to discern deeper truths. A mystery solved is a rare treat. As I watch my young grandchildren explore, fall and get up over and over, I realize we are born explorers. keep searching.
Fascinating and very enjoyable! I hope you’re able to uncover more Hemingway fountain pen facts so that we get a part III to this series. I also prefer the term point, rather than nib - point is what I’ve always known them to be called. I’ve only recently become interested in fountain pens, so the term nib confused me at first. Excellent choice of shirt for this topic!
Thank you for this fascinating video. From when I was at university, I seem to remember an English professor saying that Hemingway liked to type descriptions and handwrite dialogue, because by taking pen in hand he was able to write more intimate dialogue. I don't know if this is true or not and since that was a half-century ago, I may have remembered it incorrectly. I remembered it backwards. I just found this from an article entitled "Hemingway On Writing Good Dialogue" by Linda Caroll in the Feb 05, 2024 edition of the online zine "Hello, Writer!" Ms. Caroll says: "I ran across a fascinating conversation with him. 'Esquire,' I think, but I could be wrong. He said when he’s writing prose, he prefers a pencil. But when writing dialogue, he moves to the typewriter. Because people talk like typewriters."
Great information. Thank you! As I said in the video, the pens were mostly for correspondence and household items. I believe it was only a single pen-created manuscript.
Anthony Bordain did a video on a Restaurant on an island in Venice where Hemingway and other artists were drawn to the food. In their guest book his Signature is written boldly. A place with such rich history not only with him but named artists that graced the place.
Very well done, Mr. Jones! Great to see libraries in action… they are the most infallible sources of information ❤ I have to agree with Mr. Hemingway. My writing looks out of control in a stub nib and I am hopeless without a line guide 😂
Thanks, HJ. I too find learning stuff like those about famous writers interesting. I also love brown ink, as you know, my favorite being Noodler's #41 Brown. Here lately I've been using Sailor's Manyo Yu. It is a very pretty red. But it's only semi water-resistant according to my tests.
Sepia ink was always historic, so a shade to brown is not surprising. My browns include Noodler's #41, FWP Writer's Desk, Conklin Rich Mahogany, and PR Ebony Brown. It works very well on cream paper, which gives a vintage feel to your writing.
Magnificent video, I enjoyed it very much. I hope you have in mind to make some more videos of this type. There are so many to choose from, Tolkien, H.P.Lovecraft, Poe, Ken Follett, Noah Gordon...
Really enjoyed the new video. My favorite ink color to write with is brown on a cream paper as well. This combination has an old school feel and look to it that I find calming and comfortable. Thank you for taking the time to share your research with us.
Your videos are always worth watching but I really love when you go all academic. Learn so much from you. As a woman, I have a love-hate relationship with the person who was Ernest Hemingway. His writing was sublime, but his misogyny both annoys and intrigues me, yet he lived, he really lived. Maybe one day you could put all this excellent research into a book, or maybe a Masters (or both). As an erstwhile academic myself, you got what it takes HJ. Just saying… 😉
Hello HJ. Very interesting video and I applaud the clever detective work that you have done. I didn't realize that Hemingway was from Oak Park. I grew up just a few miles east of there in the great city of Chicago. Love the style videos that you create. Always interesting my friend.
Hi HJ! A fascinating video! It's easy for us now, with our hundred of colors of ink, to think that there were only two or three colors available "back in the day". Sepia inks have been around for a LONG time, as well as Red, Green, etc. When dip pens and fountain pens became universally used, it is pretty certain that ink colors expanded greatly. In one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, there is reference to Holmes telling Watson "her finger and glove were stained with violet ink". This was one of the earlier short stories, so would have certainly been before 1900. So, maybe our great, great grandparents weren't so colorless, after all!
Good sleuthing, Sherlock. Thanks. Love this. Interested in seeing what you discover about Tolkien and what he used to write then Tengwar, his Elvish script. One of the appendices for Lord of the Rings says that Bilbo wrote with green ink in a thin and spidery script. Eager to see what you uncover there.
Just watched this for the second time, thanks for sharing your enthusiasm and research. I don’t know why, but I have not read Hemingway yet. The one exception 10 years ago “A Movable Feast,” in a Kindle edition when I first started with Kindle. Loved it ! I certainly have the time now, so I think I should get started. Do you have a suggestion for my 2nd Hemingway book? About the brown ink, since it is the only example so far of Papa using brown, I wonder if it might be actually a case of black aging to brown due to storage variables over the decades. I guess Christy’s has the knowledge and skills to recognize that. Other wise a new mystery for you? Thanks so much to you, The Kennedy Library, and Christy’s for this inspiring post.
Thanks Alan! I am so glad you liked this and found some inspiration. I would maybe read For Whom the Bell Tolls. It is epic. That brown ink mystery is interesting and we’ll never know until we see a copy.
Maybe there's some information about this: since Ernest Hemingway had a home in Cuba, the author possibly use any Cuban-made pens and ink that are not well-known in the U.S.? Also I remember Michael Korda telling about being on a Mediterranean yacht trip at the ripe old age of 15 with, I believe, his uncle Alexander Korda and also with Vivien Leigh and the author Graham Greene. Mr. Korda wrote about how Graham Greene would unscrew his fountain pen and write exactly 1,500 words per day in a note book, leather, I think, and then was done for the day. Young Michael at one of their stops in the cruise went to a shop and bought a fountain pen and notebook for himself and started writing. Wouldn't it be fun to know what kind of pens and notebooks the older and the young author were using!
Interesting history. It would also be interesting to hear of the evolution of ink. I suspect, without evidence, that shimmering ink is an invention of more or less recent times. Color in general, though, must go back to ancient times. Illuminated manuscripts from antiquity featured color. I've heard sepia ink was originally from cuttlefish, and Tyrian purple came from snail squeezings. I'm not sure if that was ever used as ink, but it was definitely a dye. To die for, apparently. I think the snails gave all.
That’s a great topic, My Friend. Remember, there is color and then there is Fountain Pen Ink color. I don’t remember shimmer back in the 90s. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there, but I don’t remember it. Someone must know. I may ask the community. Thanks!!
I would be fascinated to know what kind of pen Tolkien used. I also have a mystery. I have a photocopy (I don't know who has the original) of my great-great-grandfather's journal, in which he covered fighting in the Civil War and moving to California. He lived from 1829 - 1915. It probably would have been too early for him to have used a fountain pen and I have always wondered what kind of pens he must have used. I probably will never know.
Tolkien didn't own a fountain pen until about 1967, when one was given to him. He wrote with what Cambridge was giving for free to students and faculty, the Esterbrook 314 Relief dip point. (He was notoriously cheap. 😁) They are still readily available online, as they're probably Esterbrook's best seller of all time. Bought a few for a niece recently. About $4 each, plus shipping. Your Civil War letters could have also been written with an Esterbrook. They exploded in popularity after the company was founded in 1858. Even Lincoln used them, though I only know the brand, not which number point. Or maybe even something local to your ancestor, though the manufacturers tended to stick to around New Jersey. (Hunt, which also has made the Speedball points since the early 1900s is from that state, as well as Spencerian. Not just a writing style, but a point manufacturer as well. )
Don’t some iron gall or similar inks start life nearly black but fade to brown with age? So perhaps he was using a nominally black ink that has changed over the decades.
Interesting topic. I wonder if it truly was brown ink, or is it black ink that faded? A lot of black inks of time would fade due exposure to light, the paper used, etc.
Truly anything is possible and you never know until you see it yourself, if indeed you can tell from that. However, I imagine that since they noted it that it was notable, if you know what I mean. Thanks!
There's a chance he was starting to drink at the same time he wrote the letter. So it may be possible you are watching the effects of alcohol kicking during the writing.
As far as I know there has been only one successful self-filling FP. The Parker 61 produced roughly from the early 1960s through mid 1970s. Un thread the section from the barrel, stick the end of the teflon coated filler tube at the opposite end of the section in ink (nib pointing up) for 10-20 seconds, take out of ink, rethread section to barrel and you are good to go thanks to the magic of capillary action. I know, there are two here on my desk and I wrote with both today, one has black ink and the other purple.
With all due respect to them, they are all incorrect. There is no evidence so far whatsoever that he ever used one or said anything about one. If anyone has a quote and a source, I would be happy to revise. This is all Montegrappa marketing. So far…
@@HemingwayJones I'm not sure. They seem to be basing it on that in WW1, he was stationed in Italy by the original Montegrappa factory. It could just be Montegrappa marketing. But it's hard for me to believe that he didn't have several different kinds of fountain pens. I'm not even famous or wealthy and I have different brand-named pens.
@@robertcalkjr.8325 Hello My Friend. So far, in looking at all the first hand sources, they appear to only be repeating something someone else had claimed at some point. There is no proof of it whatsoever. This is what got me started on this journey of curiosity. What can we prove? That was the question. That’s what makes it fun. Just because he was in Italy doesn’t mean that he owned an Italian pen. I have listed several that he did own with verifiable proof and sources that anyone could check. I haven’t found a single bit of evidence of Montegrappa. Thanks as always for your great perspective.
Very well done, Mr. Jones! Great to see libraries in action… they are the most infallible sources of information ❤ I have to agree with Mr. Hemingway. My writing looks out of control in a stub nib and I am hopeless without a line guide 😂
I found this about HP Lovecraft, on the fountain pen network : The following is an excerpt from Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside, by Frank Belknap Long, a close friend of Lovecraft's.
Howard was fascinated by small articles of stationery -- writing pads, rubber bands of assorted sizes, phials of India ink, unusual letterheads, erasers, mechanical pencils, and particularly fountain pens.
He used one pen, chosen with the most painstaking care, until it wore out, and several important factors entered into his purchase of a writing instrument. It had to have just the right kind of ink flow, molding itself to his hand in such a way that he was never conscious of the slightest strain as he filled page after page with his often minute calligraphy. It also had to be a black Waterman; a pen of another color or make would have been unthinkable.
When a pen he had used for several years wore out, the purchase of a new one became an event -- lamentable in some respects, but presenting a challenge which I am sure he secretly enjoyed. We were walking northward from Battery Park [NYC], where I had met him at noon, stopping occasionally to admire one of the very old houses which still could be found scattered throughout the financial district in the 1920s, when he told me that he intended to purchase a new pen at the first stationery store that had a well-stocked reliable appearance. He removed the old one from his vest pocket and showed me how worn the point had become. I found myself wondering just how many letters and postcards he had written with it, for it did have a ground-down aspect.
We walked on for three or four blocks, found the kind of store he had in mind, and I accompanied him inside. The clerk who waited on him was amiable and greeted him with a smile when he asked to try out a number of pens.
"The point has to be just right," Howard said. "If it won't put you to too much inconvenience, I'd like to test out at least twenty pens."
The clerk's smile did not vanish when Howard turned to me and said, "I'm afraid this will take some time."
It was just a guess, but I felt somehow that he had made the kind of understatment that would strain the clerk's patience almost beyond endurance.
"We just passed a pipe store," I said. "I'd like to go back and look at the window again. I may just possibly decide to buy a new pipe. I can be back in fifteen or twenty minutes."
"No need to hurry," he said. "I'll probably be here much longer than that."
I was gone for forty-five minutes. It was inexcusable, I suppose, but it was a clear, bright day, a wind with a the tang of the sea was blowing in from one of the East River wharves where several four-masted sailing ships were tied, and I decided to go for quite a long walk instead of returning to the pipe shop.
When I got back to the stationery store, there were at least fifty pens lying about on the counter and Howard was still having difficulty in finding one with just the right balance and smoothness of ink flow. The clerk looked a little haggard-eyed but he was still smiling, wanly.
The careful choice of a fountain pen may sweem a minor matter and hardly one that merits dwelling on at considerable length. But to me it has always seemed a vtally important key to the basic personality of HPL in more than one respect. He liked small objects of great beauty, symmetrical in design and superbly crafted, and by the same token larger objects that exhibited a similar kind of artistic perfection. And the raven-black Waterman he finally selected was both somber and non-ornate, with not even a small gold band encircling it. That appealed to him in another way and was entirely in harmony with his choice of attire.
Thanks very much! It is always awesome and interesting when it is so integrated into the writer and his or her work.
This is one of the best comments I've ever read. How picky he and all of us can be when it comes to our fountain pens!
This makes me want to ask when did fountain pen nibs became interchangeabe? Was that an option for writers in Lovecraft's day?
What a great story! Thank you for sharing this!
@@andrewbrendan1579 Thank you for watching!
“HJ, Pen Detective”, a definite series in the making. Bravo 👏
Thanks Gino! these are definitely fun!
This is what you do best! I love it!Authors I’d want to know: Tolkien, CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, Ayn Rand. I’ll probably think of others
Thanks so much! I’ll do more of these. The Hemingway well is getting dry.
@@HemingwayJones I saw a video to Tolkien writing and it looked like a pelikan nib.
Add
mark twain.
Sir Arthur conan doyle.
Agatha Christie.
To that list my friend 😁
You are like a sleuth, digging out facts from history. Love it!
On one of my trips to London, I was delighted to see a hand-written, hand-edited manuscript of my favorite novel, Middlemarch. I don’t know if it was written with a fountain pen. It was published in 1871-2, so I guess it’s possible? At any rate, hats off to those early novelists who wrote without benefit of Microsoft, IBM Selectric, Wite-Out, or Smith Corona. It’sa wonder we have any Classics at all!
That is a very good point. Writing long hand take an exceptional talent. Neil Gaiman does it now.
Already my second time arching this video. I love how letters are the things that last through the years and give us a real insight into how a person was thinking.
Thank you so much! I am so glad you enjoyed it!
This was an exceptional video! And the conversation it inspired in the comments is so engaging. Very well done and thank you.
Thank you so much!
Great piece of research! Thank you so much for your perseverance. It just gets more and more fascinating.
Thank you and thanks for watching!!!
That is so fascinating. I'm a new stylophile. How wonderful to hear about the pen-styles of the rich and famous!
Thank you so much!
Fabulously interesting video. Thank you for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for watching!
I bet Waterman would love to help track down the second pen (they may still have records dating back that far!). I'd love to see them launch a special edition for today's writers if they can help you track it down
That would be fun. Plus, it’s an excuse to head to Paris!
Wow, Tim!!! I love this kind of video. As a theologian, I am constantly playing detective to discern deeper truths. A mystery solved is a rare treat. As I watch my young grandchildren explore, fall and get up over and over, I realize we are born explorers. keep searching.
Thank you, My Friend! I am glad you enjoyed this! I will keep following my curiosity to where it leads.
Fascinating and very enjoyable! I hope you’re able to uncover more Hemingway fountain pen facts so that we get a part III to this series.
I also prefer the term point, rather than nib - point is what I’ve always known them to be called. I’ve only recently become interested in fountain pens, so the term nib confused me at first.
Excellent choice of shirt for this topic!
Thank you very much! I am glad you enjoyed this and my guayabera!
Thank you for this fascinating video.
From when I was at university, I seem to remember an English professor saying that Hemingway liked to type descriptions and handwrite dialogue, because by taking pen in hand he was able to write more intimate dialogue. I don't know if this is true or not and since that was a half-century ago, I may have remembered it incorrectly.
I remembered it backwards. I just found this from an article entitled "Hemingway On Writing Good Dialogue" by Linda Caroll in the Feb 05, 2024 edition of the online zine "Hello, Writer!" Ms. Caroll says:
"I ran across a fascinating conversation with him. 'Esquire,' I think, but I could be wrong. He said when he’s writing prose, he prefers a pencil. But when writing dialogue, he moves to the typewriter. Because people talk like typewriters."
Great information. Thank you! As I said in the video, the pens were mostly for correspondence and household items. I believe it was only a single pen-created manuscript.
Anthony Bordain did a video on a Restaurant on an island in Venice where Hemingway and other artists were drawn to the food. In their guest book his Signature is written boldly. A place with such rich history not only with him but named artists that graced the place.
It may have been Harry’s. I sat in his chair there and toasted the man. I’ll have to check that episode. Thanks.
@@HemingwayJones th-cam.com/video/YkY_wr5PLNI/w-d-xo.html
@@HemingwayJones Trattatoria Da Romana on an island in Venice it starts with a dedication from Ernest Hemingway
@@ernestop6501 thanks for this! I’ll run it down. Thank you! I’ll be in Venice soon.
the perfect shirt for an Ernest Hemingway video. So Havana
Thank you!
I love this! It’s very interesting to learn about 20th century authors using fountain pens instead of pencils
Thanks for watching!
Ahhhh! This is the type of content I just adore! Thank you!
Lisa
Thank you! You can always count on it from me !
Very well done, Mr. Jones! Great to see libraries in action… they are the most infallible sources of information ❤
I have to agree with Mr. Hemingway. My writing looks out of control in a stub nib and I am hopeless without a line guide 😂
American writers museum in Chicago might be a good resource
It's so exciting when you go on these detective quests!
Thank you! I do pursue tributaries.
Thanks, HJ. I too find learning stuff like those about famous writers interesting. I also love brown ink, as you know, my favorite being Noodler's #41 Brown.
Here lately I've been using Sailor's Manyo Yu. It is a very pretty red. But it's only semi water-resistant according to my tests.
Wonderful My Friend!
That’s why I love this channel❤
Thank you!
Love this video! I know I’ll watch this over and over
Thank you!
Sepia ink was always historic, so a shade to brown is not surprising. My browns include Noodler's #41, FWP Writer's Desk, Conklin Rich Mahogany, and PR Ebony Brown. It works very well on cream paper, which gives a vintage feel to your writing.
Very nice! I picked up a true sepia ink in Venice for my dip pens. I haven’t used it yet!
Absolutely Love this Pen Detective series!
Thank you! I love doing these!
Magnificent video, I enjoyed it very much. I hope you have in mind to make some more videos of this type. There are so many to choose from, Tolkien, H.P.Lovecraft, Poe, Ken Follett, Noah Gordon...
Pen detective Hemingway Johnes came with yet another banger ladies and gentleman........ Keep up the good work sir
Much appreciated! Thank you!
Really enjoyed the new video. My favorite ink color to write with is brown on a cream paper as well. This combination has an old school feel and look to it that I find calming and comfortable. Thank you for taking the time to share your research with us.
Very very nice! Thanks for watching!
Your videos are always worth watching but I really love when you go all academic. Learn so much from you. As a woman, I have a love-hate relationship with the person who was Ernest Hemingway. His writing was sublime, but his misogyny both annoys and intrigues me, yet he lived, he really lived.
Maybe one day you could put all this excellent research into a book, or maybe a Masters (or both). As an erstwhile academic myself, you got what it takes HJ. Just saying… 😉
Thank you very much. That is very kind of you to say. Good luck with your studies!
Hello HJ. Very interesting video and I applaud the clever detective work that you have done. I didn't realize that Hemingway was from Oak Park. I grew up just a few miles east of there in the great city of Chicago. Love the style videos that you create. Always interesting my friend.
Thank you very much! I appreciate you and your encouraging words. Thank you.
Hi HJ! A fascinating video! It's easy for us now, with our hundred of colors of ink, to think that there were only two or three colors available "back in the day". Sepia inks have been around for a LONG time, as well as Red, Green, etc. When dip pens and fountain pens became universally used, it is pretty certain that ink colors expanded greatly. In one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, there is reference to Holmes telling Watson "her finger and glove were stained with violet ink". This was one of the earlier short stories, so would have certainly been before 1900. So, maybe our great, great grandparents weren't so colorless, after all!
Truly! Thanks for the great comment!
If only we had a museum of all the pens that belonged to famous writers. That be so cool.
a very interesting and fun video trying to figure out these pens.
Thank you!
Have you been to the Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West? That's an awesome place.
I have indeed! It is!
Good sleuthing, Sherlock. Thanks. Love this. Interested in seeing what you discover about Tolkien and what he used to write then Tengwar, his Elvish script. One of the appendices for Lord of the Rings says that Bilbo wrote with green ink in a thin and spidery script. Eager to see what you uncover there.
Tolkien interests me. You may very well see this!
Nice video! Like your guayabera!😊
Thank you! I thought it was appropriate!
@@HemingwayJonesyou are most welcome!😊
Just watched this for the second time, thanks for sharing your enthusiasm and research. I don’t know why, but I have not read Hemingway yet. The one exception 10 years ago “A Movable Feast,” in a Kindle edition when I first started with Kindle. Loved it ! I certainly have the time now, so I think I should get started. Do you have a suggestion for my 2nd Hemingway book? About the brown ink, since it is the only example so far of Papa using brown, I wonder if it might be actually a case of black aging to brown due to storage variables over the decades. I guess Christy’s has the knowledge and skills to recognize that. Other wise a new mystery for you? Thanks so much to you, The Kennedy Library, and Christy’s for this inspiring post.
Thanks Alan! I am so glad you liked this and found some inspiration. I would maybe read For Whom the Bell Tolls. It is epic. That brown ink mystery is interesting and we’ll never know until we see a copy.
@@HemingwayJones Ok, will go with the bell tolling, thanks.
Please do William Faulkner next. :)
Lovely video. Very interesting!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
Love to hear more about other writers.
I’m working on that. Thanks!
Love this video thank so much.
You are so welcome!
Thanks
Thank you! I appreciate it so much!
Maybe there's some information about this: since Ernest Hemingway had a home in Cuba, the author possibly use any Cuban-made pens and ink that are not well-known in the U.S.?
Also I remember Michael Korda telling about being on a Mediterranean yacht trip at the ripe old age of 15 with, I believe, his uncle Alexander Korda and also with Vivien Leigh and the author Graham Greene. Mr. Korda wrote about how Graham Greene would unscrew his fountain pen and write exactly 1,500 words per day in a note book, leather, I think, and then was done for the day. Young Michael at one of their stops in the cruise went to a shop and bought a fountain pen and notebook for himself and started writing. Wouldn't it be fun to know what kind of pens and notebooks the older and the young author were using!
@@andrewbrendan1579 Very interesting questions! Thanks! I am a fan of Graham Greene. He wrote The Third Man. One of my favorite films.
Nice video and research amigo!
Thanks!
Interesting history. It would also be interesting to hear of the evolution of ink. I suspect, without evidence, that shimmering ink is an invention of more or less recent times.
Color in general, though, must go back to ancient times. Illuminated manuscripts from antiquity featured color. I've heard sepia ink was originally from cuttlefish, and Tyrian purple came from snail squeezings. I'm not sure if that was ever used as ink, but it was definitely a dye. To die for, apparently. I think the snails gave all.
That’s a great topic, My Friend. Remember, there is color and then there is Fountain Pen Ink color. I don’t remember shimmer back in the 90s. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there, but I don’t remember it. Someone must know. I may ask the community. Thanks!!
Great video, a inserting of what kind of pen he wrote with,frank in Oswego,il
Thanks Man!
Loved this. I'm fascinated with Martha Gellhorn (total badass) so I would love to know what she wrote with.
Thank you!
I would be fascinated to know what kind of pen Tolkien used. I also have a mystery. I have a photocopy (I don't know who has the original) of my great-great-grandfather's journal, in which he covered fighting in the Civil War and moving to California. He lived from 1829 - 1915. It probably would have been too early for him to have used a fountain pen and I have always wondered what kind of pens he must have used. I probably will never know.
Tolkien didn't own a fountain pen until about 1967, when one was given to him. He wrote with what Cambridge was giving for free to students and faculty, the Esterbrook 314 Relief dip point. (He was notoriously cheap. 😁)
They are still readily available online, as they're probably Esterbrook's best seller of all time. Bought a few for a niece recently. About $4 each, plus shipping.
Your Civil War letters could have also been written with an Esterbrook. They exploded in popularity after the company was founded in 1858. Even Lincoln used them, though I only know the brand, not which number point.
Or maybe even something local to your ancestor, though the manufacturers tended to stick to around New Jersey. (Hunt, which also has made the Speedball points since the early 1900s is from that state, as well as Spencerian. Not just a writing style, but a point manufacturer as well. )
@@curious_416 Thank you!
@@paulherman5822 Sweet! Thank you!
Don’t some iron gall or similar inks start life nearly black but fade to brown with age? So perhaps he was using a nominally black ink that has changed over the decades.
Yes! Absolutely. Iron gall. But here the archivist made specific points of color. I’d love to see!
I have seen red and green inks used by accountants., And my grandmother used purple ink.
Excellent point!
Interesting topic. I wonder if it truly was brown ink, or is it black ink that faded? A lot of black inks of time would fade due exposure to light, the paper used, etc.
Truly anything is possible and you never know until you see it yourself, if indeed you can tell from that. However, I imagine that since they noted it that it was notable, if you know what I mean. Thanks!
I may send you a polydactyl cat for your special collection...
Yes! Please do! I have seen them in Key West and they are adorable.
Hemingway intentionally misspelling words - sometimes even his own name - is a common theme throughout his letters.
Plus, his spelling was terrible.
@@HemingwayJones definitely true haha
Don't worry about him. Be your own person.
Advice I do not need, and if you’ve watched my channel you would know that, but thanks for watching and for the comment.
I now have to know what pen and ink Tolkien used...and C.S. Lewis, too.
Curiosity is a delightful guide!
Wow! Hemingway's papers ended up at the Kennedy Library. Who knew? Not I. Any idea how they got there?
Yes, in fact! May Hemingway, his last wife, donated them there as a gift in support of Jackie Kennedy to help set up the Library.
There's a chance he was starting to drink at the same time he wrote the letter. So it may be possible you are watching the effects of alcohol kicking during the writing.
He was 16 when he wrote it and under the thumb of a very conservative mother. I’d be very surprised, but I do not rule it out completely.
What does "self filling" mean?
@curious_416 answered this more eloquently than I could. Well done!
As far as I know there has been only one successful self-filling FP. The Parker 61 produced roughly from the early 1960s through mid 1970s. Un thread the section from the barrel, stick the end of the teflon coated filler tube at the opposite end of the section in ink (nib pointing up) for 10-20 seconds, take out of ink, rethread section to barrel and you are good to go thanks to the magic of capillary action. I know, there are two here on my desk and I wrote with both today, one has black ink and the other purple.
Did you see the Montblanc that is coming? Looks very interesting if but a bit restricting.
@@HemingwayJones No, but will keep my eye out.
Sorry I could only mash "like" once.
Thanks so much! I appreciate it so much.
Please go the way of the Fellowship... more Tolkien.
I need to! It is calling me!
I did a little poking around and Gentleman's Journal, Pen Boutique, and all that I have seen says that Hemingway's favorite pen was a Montegrappa.
With all due respect to them, they are all incorrect. There is no evidence so far whatsoever that he ever used one or said anything about one. If anyone has a quote and a source, I would be happy to revise. This is all Montegrappa marketing. So far…
@@HemingwayJones I'm not sure. They seem to be basing it on that in WW1, he was stationed in Italy by the original Montegrappa factory. It could just be Montegrappa marketing.
But it's hard for me to believe that he didn't have several different kinds of fountain pens. I'm not even famous or wealthy and I have different brand-named pens.
@@robertcalkjr.8325 Hello My Friend. So far, in looking at all the first hand sources, they appear to only be repeating something someone else had claimed at some point. There is no proof of it whatsoever.
This is what got me started on this journey of curiosity. What can we prove? That was the question. That’s what makes it fun.
Just because he was in Italy doesn’t mean that he owned an Italian pen. I have listed several that he did own with verifiable proof and sources that anyone could check.
I haven’t found a single bit of evidence of Montegrappa. Thanks as always for your great perspective.
@@HemingwayJones Yeah, their 'proof' is pretty lame. They all jump on it like a dog on a bone.
Very well done, Mr. Jones! Great to see libraries in action… they are the most infallible sources of information ❤
I have to agree with Mr. Hemingway. My writing looks out of control in a stub nib and I am hopeless without a line guide 😂
I love how frustrated and apologetic he was. It’s endearing. Because I can relate!