Product details
- ISBN 9781837263189
- Dimensions: 159 x 220mm
- Publication Date: 10 Sep 2026
- Publisher: Canongate Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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'Glorious' EMMA THOMPSON
'Delightful' PHILIP PULLMAN
'Brilliant' JACQUELINE WILSON
From a reed cut on the banks of the Nile to the Sharpie, the pen has been with us for millennia. And all of humanity - from our faintest notions to our wildest inventions, our gossip and legends, our grandest proclamations and most intimate confessions - has flowed from a quill, ink chamber or ballpoint tip. The pen is the enduring link between a writer and anyone, anywhere, who can read their words. But the pen's own story is just as eventful as anything it has described.
In this expansive and engaging history, Simon Garfield traces the pen's remarkable journey across time and place. He examines the inks and instruments used by Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, meets innovators and obsessives, travels to the workshops of pen makers and into wartime trenches, discovers why fountain pens make such good gadgets for spies and assassins, and learns about the bestselling pen that wouldn't stop leaking.
Written with Garfield's trademark wit and drawing on his own research and interviews, The Pen examines how this everyday object has been the indelible marker of our shared culture - and why it continues to shape the way we communicate in the digital age.
Simon Garfield was born in London in 1960. He is the author of an appealingly diverse and unpredictable canon of non-fiction, including the bestsellers Mauve, Just My Type and On The Map. He is a trustee of Mass Observation, and is the editor of several books of diaries from the archive, including Our Hidden Lives and A Notable Woman. His recent books include Timekeepers, In Miniature and All the Knowledge in the World. He lives in London and Cornwall.
simongarfield.com
