A Note on Ball-Point Pens

Authors

  • Dennis McEldowney

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26686/knznq.v2i2.615

Abstract

Jane Stafford, in Kotare Vol.2, No.1 (May 1999), makes the following observation on Ngaio Marsh’s early play, Little Housebound (p.30, note 6): ‘The name and address are written in ball-point pen, rather than the ink of Marsh’s dedication. My assumption is that this indicates that it was written later than 1922.’ There is no need to ‘assume’: it could not have been written before 1938, when Biro patented his design, and is unlikely to have been written until after the Second World War, when ball-point pens became generally available in NewZealand. (I judge from a notebook with dated entries that I acquired my first in1949.) This is not a trivial point. It would be crucial to the dating of some manuscripts, and literary scholars should take note of it.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Dennis McEldowney

Downloads

Published

1999-06-06