Fact · Dictation
1885year
Mark Twain had experimented with dictation as a method of composition as early as 1885.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“which encouraged him to embrace dictation as the method of composition, something he had experimented with as early as 1885.”
Autobiography of Mark Twain: Explanatory Notes and Introduction, Mark Twain Project, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, Mark Twain Project, 2010, Introduction, on the stenographer and dictation.
Open the original- What it measures
- The editors say dictation became Twain's method of composition once he had a stenographer he could work with.
- What it does not show
- The editors describe the experiment and its timing. They do not give the number of words in the early experiments.