Ray Bradbury Wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a Coin-Operated Typewriter

I'm old enough to remember coin-operated television sets in airports and bus stations. But what I found most surprising by this article in UCLA Magazine was that coin-operated typewriters existed. This particular model was designed in 1927 and the payment system was invented in 1938.

As for Ray Bradbury's iconic novel Fahrenheit 451, he composed the original version of the story at some point in the late 1940s (the precise date appears to be uncertain) when he had a newborn baby at home and wanted peace and quiet in which to write. He went to the basement of the Powell Library at UCLA and used one of the rental typewriters for 20 cents an hour. $9.80 later, he had a functional draft.

-via Nag on the Lake | Photo: Art Blast