I was in the midst of some research on Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan) when I took a closer look at Boston College’s John J. Burns Library’s Blog The site itemizes its collection of Flann O’Brien’s personal possessions. Today I took a closer look at the description of his Underwood, and I noticed some discrepancies. Image shown here:

The description erroneously mentions “typewriter and case” because one of his letters mentions such a typewriter in 1953, a portable Underwood of unknown model. (Perhaps a Champion or Universal?) As Robert Messenger points out on ozTypewriter, the above machine is a model 3 (and obviously a standard who’s never seen a case in its life). Messenger dates the machine at 1917. I’m not particularly adept at using the Typewriter Database, but my reading is that the machine dates to 1916. (Perhaps, Wise Reader, you could chime in here?) My guess is that the curator assumed Flann O’Brien would have used a typewriter manufactured at a time contemporaneous with his writing activities, hence dating the machine in the 1930s (that’s a fun clause to reread). Obviously, like so many Underwoods back then, this machine was refurbished for later use.

I’ll have to contact the Burns Library to correct the discrepancy.