Title
British Council Collection of Correspondence and Reports
Reference
MS 5118
Production date
1960-2001
Creator
Creator History
The British Council is the United Kingdom?s public diplomacy and cultural organisation. Part of its work is to send British writers on trips abroad in order to help international artistic understanding.
Scope and Content
Correspondence between 183 British and Irish writers and the British Council together with reports of visits and other miscellaneous papers. Includes material from Brian Aldiss (11 letters, 1 report 1987-1994); Alan Brownjohn (11 letters, 2 reports 1988-1992); Margaret Drabble (14 letters, 10 related correspondence, 1 report 1976-1994); T.S. Eliot (3 letters, 1963); William Golding (16 letters, 6 related correspondence, 1 report 1986-1992); Graham Greene ( 3 letters 1982-1988); Michael Holroyd (5 letters, 1 report 1988-1992); Iris Murdoch (30 letters, 3 related correspondence 1978-1993); Stephen Spender (8 letters, 2 related correspondence 1963-1992); Julian Symons (11 letters, 1 postcard, 1 related correspondence, 1 report 1987-1994); Anthony Thwaite (5 letters, poems, 2 reports 1988-1996); Arnold Wesker (13 letters 1972-1993). There are also documents (carbons and photocopies) relating to the illness and death in Vienna of the poet and British Council employee Bernard Spencer, sent to the British Council on behalf of Roger Bowen of the University of Arizona, who was preparing a biography.
Extent
6 boxes
Language
English
Level of description
fonds
Content person
British Council,
Charles Bernard Spencer, 1909-1963,
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch, 1919-1999,
Margaret Drabble, 1939-,
Sir Arnold Wesker, 1932-2016, Knight,
Sir William Gerald Golding, 1911-1993, Knight Conditions governing access
30 year closure from date of creation; permission required from both Literary Executor and the British Council
Archival history
Incorporates MS 3478: letters and reports from British and Irish writers deposited in June 1989; E.M. Forster - manuscript page from an early draft of "A Passage to India", with a note of authentication initialled by Forster, which was found in the British Council offices in Rome; MS 3441; MS 2659 - letters extracted from British Council files, 1955-1980; and material deposited since 1989