“The story grew in the telling.” So starts The Lord of the Rings, one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Given that the works of J.R.R Tolkien were created over not one lifetime but two (his son Christopher has devoted many years to deciphering and assembling the unpublished and prolific writings of his father as literary executor of the Tolkien estate), this statement is a gross understatement.
Tolkien hand wrote and annotated most of his writings, and we know that he used a dip pen with an Esterbrook #314 nib. How many of those nibs he must have gone through as he created Middle-earth and its history, who can know? And what of other writers? Did Arthur Conan Doyle indeed write at least some of his Sherlock Holmes stories with a Parker Duofold? Science fiction author Neal Stephenson uses fountain pens to write the first draft of his books.
Want to dig deeper into the people behind the pens? The Mythgard Institute began as a place to study the two-lifetime library of Tolkien works. It has since expanded to offer courses focused on other fantasy authors as well as science fiction. With three tiers of course offerings from free and open to the public to a Masters program in Literature and Languages, Mythgard is the place for considered study of the likes of Neil Gaiman (TWSBI 540 ROC, Lamy 2000, Pilot 823 Amber), Richard Adams (who wrote Watership Down with a fountain pen of unknown variety), and other pen wielders.
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