Cormac McCarthy’s Olivetti Lettera 32 has finally died, after 46 years of service and an author-estimated 5 million words. For those who don’t know, McCarthy is the guy responsible for bringing us such classics as The Road and No Country for Old Men. The typewriter will be auctioned off with Christie’s, with an expected sell price of $15,000-$20,000.

It’s quite a testament to the machine that it was able to churn out 5,000,000 words before biting the big one. At an average of 275 words per page (some say 250, some say 300), that’s more than 18,000 pages. Apparently the only thing McCarthy did to take care of the typewriter was occasionally “blowing out the dust with a service station hose.”

So what’s next for one of America’s greatest authors? A new Macbook? An Acer netbook? Nah, he’s way too classy for that. McCarthy is sticking with the Olivetti. His friend John Miller managed to locate another one for $11.

Source: NYTimes