Placing a penny in the slot, or pressing an electric button, has become the efficient prelude to so many mechanical wonders nowadays that fresh surprises attract little comment. An automatic machine which shows the steps of dances, and at the same time explains them, was the recent production of a Berlin inventor. Yet, the resources of the American genius in this direction seem to be even greater. I see the following in a New York paper: - "A mechanical robot that turns out plots for brain fagged authors is the invention of Wycliffe A. Hill, a Los Angeles scenario writer. Named `Shakespeare's Ghost,' this device is said to produce the complete outline of a fiction story in twenty minutes. It selects characters, background and dramatic situations from a series of tapes."
The "mechanisation of literature" - a critical phrase with not unfamiliar ring - will thus receive further grounds for justification. Readers may soon find it quite a problem to decide whether the plot of the latest "thriller" is the work of an author's brain, or has resulted from the fortunate co-ordination of mere cogs and levers.
The Irish Times, May 1st, 1931.