List of collections

Laura (Riding) Jackson Collection

The collection includes:

• 978 letters and carbon-copy and photocopies of Laura (Riding) Jackson's unpublished letters addressed to Mark Jacobs
• autobiographical accounts (including her life in Deyá, Majorca, her suicide attempt of 1929, her current life)
• personal comments on her own poems and prose both past and present
• detailed accounts of her management of dealings with work on her and Robert Graves, such as conferences (eg., MLA, 'Focus On Robert Graves', etc.)
• dealings with other authors, publishers, agents; collection of review-cuttings, public letters.

A catalogue of the Laura (Riding) Jackson archive is given on the Laura (Riding) Jackson website where summaries of letters and some typescripts and digital copies of original letters are provided. There is also a bibliography of her work and a concordance of the poems in progress. The collection also includes a series of book typescripts, proofs, amended proofs and manuscripts. There are itemised handlists available. 28 boxes of manuscript material, 14 books.

Colleen J McElroy Archive

The archive contains a collection of papers byf Colleen J McElroy (1935-), travel writer, poet and writer of fiction. It includes manuscript page-proofs, drafts of poems, letters, lecture-notes, field-notes, articles, photographs and audio-tapes. A handlist is available. Five boxes.

Labouring-class Poetry Collection

This is a collection of mostly nineteenth Century volumes of labouring-class poetry. It includes seventy five volumes on labouring-class poetry, and seventy volumes from the collection of Bloomfield enthusiast Alex Bridge, purchased by the University in 2000, funded through the Raymond Williams Centre, which constitutes the Robert Bloomfield Collection. This collection includes all the most significant early editions of Bloomfield's work, some fine large paper and illustrated editions, some popular Victorian and modern editions, and several association items.

The Labouring-Class Poetry Collection also includes the Brian Maidment Collection, 112 volumes of nineteenth century labouring class poetry, acquired in 2007 from Brian Maidment, Professor of English at the University of Salford. The Collection was first assembled to support the editing of the anthology The Poorhouse Fugitives (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1997). The Brian Maidment Collection also includes four files of working papers from the Poorhouse Fugitives project.

Raymond Williams Collection

Contains approximately 180 volumes from the personal library of Raymond Williams (1921-1988). These include works by and about Raymond Williams, volumes of poetry and literary and cultural criticism. The collection also includes a small number of letters and ephemera taken from the books.

Contemporary Writing Archive

Contains approximately 140 boxes of archival material relating to a large number of contemporary writers (1940s-), mainly from the UK, including manuscripts and typescripts of poetry and novels, and letters. The archive includes, among other material, significant holdings useful for the study of regional East Midlands writing and the history of small presses.

Further information on the holdings and a listing of authors included and partial handlists is available.