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From: oday@hplabsc.UUCP (Vicki O'Day)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Monkeys and Typewriters
Message-ID: <101@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Feb-86 19:28:05 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.101
Posted: Wed Feb 12 19:28:05 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Feb-86 02:31:02 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto CA
Lines: 27


I've been trying to remember for several years who wrote the story
about the monkey-typewriter experiment.  I read it in an anthology,
but I don't remember which.  I occasionally do a library search of
short-story collections, but I never find it, so now I'm ready to
ask for help.  Who wrote the darned thing?

Here's the story:  a "scientist" at Oxford (or Cambridge) designs
an experiment in which he places lots of monkeys in a room with
lots of typewriters.  He expects that among all the gibberish they
produce, snippets of English prose will appear.  After all, if they
lived long enough, they should (according to his hypothesis) generate
all the combinations of letters and punctuation that there are.  He is
laughed at by his colleagues.  However, the monkeys set to work, and
instead of typing mostly random nonsense, they churn out masterpieces
of English literature, one after the other.  One works on Shakespeare,
another on Dickens and so on .  The scientist is very upset because
the experiment is not turning out as he expects, and finally ends it -
I won't say how, because I don't want to spoil the story for someone
who hasn't read it.

It has to have been written before the thirties or so, because I
saw a reference to it in an Edmund Crispin mystery written about then.
Any help in finding it will be appreciated.

Vicki O'Day
hplabs!oday