As is only to be expected, ink is older than pens, not to speak of fountain pens. Across old civilizations, India, Egypt, China, Rome, ink was used, based on lamp-black and pigments with plant, animal and mineral origins. The history of those experiments and innovations is often forgotten. Something like
Quotes from two famous authors illustrate how perceptions about the fountain pen changed. The first is Mark Twain (1835-1910). This famous quote is “None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.” This was part of Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar
Gooptu. There is only one family that spells their surname with the double o’s. How or why the peculiar spelling was, and still is, resorted to, I do not know. But what I do know is that Dr Dwarka Nath Gooptu (1818 – 1882) was in the first batch of
