Here's why it's tricky:
* Early Typewriters: The first practical typewriters emerged in the 1870s, but they were cumbersome and not widely available.
* Literary Use: Early adopters of the typewriter were more likely to be journalists, businesspeople, or secretaries, as the machine offered speed and efficiency in their professions.
* No Central Record: There's no official record of every author who used a typewriter in its early years.
However, some authors widely believed to have been among the first:
* Mark Twain: While not the absolute first, Twain was an early adopter and famously used a Remington typewriter to compose "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and other works.
* Ernest Hemingway: Hemingway also favored the typewriter and was known for his minimalist style and direct prose, potentially influenced by the machine's limitations.
Therefore, while we can't definitively say who was the first author to use a typewriter, Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway are among the most prominent examples of early literary pioneers who embraced this new technology.