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Journal of the History of Collections Advance Access originally published online on July 30, 2008
Journal of the History of Collections 2008 20(2):259-271; doi:10.1093/jhc/fhn016
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

What will survive of us are manuscripts

Collecting the papers of living British writers

Jamie Andrews


  Abstract

This article looks at the policies of, and politics surrounding, the collecting of the literary manuscripts and archives of living and contemporary British writers. The changing institutional attitudes towards the idea of such a collection are charted – from the indifference of the early-twentieth century, to today's seemingly frenzied collecting – and consideration is also given to legislative solutions now being proposed to encourage writers to deposit their papers within the UK. The post-war efforts of figures such as Philip Larkin are crucial to an understanding of evolving attitudes in Britain towards collecting this material, and recently opened files from the Arts Council archives afford an understanding of the steps taken by Larkin and British Museum curators to build, and to define collecting criteria for, their unprecedented (in Britain) new collection.

Address for correspondence Jamie Andrews, Head of Modern Literary Manuscripts, Department of Western Manuscripts, British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB. jamie.andrews{at}bl.uk


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