Since Mark Twain battered out the first typed manuscript in 1883, writers have had a love affair with their typewriters. To mark the end of the manufacture of these instruments for creativity, the Guardian published a fine selection of key writers at work on their typewriters.

Hunter S. Thompson at work in his ranch in Aspen, 1976

Patricia Highsmith at work in her home in Moncourt, near Fontainebleau, in 1976

J. G. Ballard at work in his home in Shepperton, 1989

Carson McCullers in 1961

John Cheever, 1979

Angela Carter

Tennessee Williams at work, Key West, 1957

Françoise Sagan, 1955

Philip Roth at work

William Faulkner, Hollywood, 1940s

Margaret Drabble, London 1974

Ernest Hemingway at work on ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, 1939

Brendan Behan at work in the 1960s

Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie