If the evocative, yellowing manuscript ever dies out completely, supplanted by memory sticks or data clouds, it will be a sad day. But at least the novel itself isn't under threat from new technology. And no theory on, or example of, how writers write is ever as interesting as the actual books. To give Jane Austen the last word, a novel is "some work in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language". That at least will remain true, with or without the ink stains.