Many happy carriage returns

Whether you think the alleged demise of the typewriter is cause for nostalgia and sentimentalism, as Paul Bailey does, or for celebration at the superiority of the PC, this is a great accompanying gallery of photos of authors with their machines.

Many if not most look staged: Agatha Christie, nervously eyeing towers of books that threaten to topple down on her head, and definitely Angela Carter, a huge basket of scrumpled paper almost designed to demonstrate a streak of self-criticism and perfectionism. There are some images you expect - Ernest Hemingway busy composing with a drink in hand - but others that you don't - William Faulkner dressed like a British sunburn victim in Benidorm (shorts and no shirt but also big thick socks).

The most fascinating is of John Cheever. He's leaning forward with arms outstretched - to wind his script on, in all likelihood - but the freeze-framed pose suggests he's shielding his typewriter from the photographer, either protective of his machine or concerned at the camera's intrusion upon his intimate relationship with it, or simply afflicted with that characteristic authorial anxiety of having unfinished work exposed to others' eyes.

Incidentally, anyone who enjoys looking at both typewriters and people chuffing furiously on fags really should watch Mad Men...

(Thanks to Alanna for the link.)