Boundaries of the Literary Archive

Dr Carrie Smith is a Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University, UK. Lisa Stead is a Lecturer in English and Film at the University of Exeter, UK.

• Introduction, Lisa Stead; Part I Theorizing the Archive; Chapter 1 The Archaeology of the Manuscript: Towards Modern Palaeography, Wim Van Mierlo; Chapter 2 Allusion and Exogenesis: The Labouring Heart of Samuel Beckett’s Ill Seen Ill Said, Iain Bailey; Chapter 3 Original Order, Added Value? Archival Theory and the Douglas Coupland Fonds, Jennifer Douglas; Part II Reclamation and Representation; Chapter 4 Untrustworthy Reproductions and Doctored Archives: Undoing the Sins of a Victorian Biographer, Isabelle Cosgrave; Chapter 5 The Double Life of ‘The Ghost in the Garden Room’: Charles Dickens Edits Elizabeth Gaskell, Fran Baker; Chapter 6 Lost Property: John Galsworthy and the Search for ‘That Stuffed Shirt’, Simon Barker; Chapter 7 Poetry and Personality: The Private Papers and Public Image of Elizabeth Jennings, Jane Dowson; Part III Boundaries; Chapter 8 Illustration and Ekphrasis: The Working Drafts of Ted Hughes’s Cave Birds, Carrie Smith; Chapter 9 Letter Writing, Cinemagoing and Archive Ephemera, Lisa Stead; Part IV Working in the Archive; Chapter 10 To Reveal or Conceal: Privacy and Confidentiality in the Papers of Contemporary Authors, Sara S. Hodson; Chapter 11 Teaching the Material Archive at Smith College, Karen V. Kukil; Chapter 12 ‘What will survive of us are manuscripts’: Archives, Scholarship and Human Stories, Helen Taylor;

’This volume illuminates the challenges posed by the literary archive by assembling an impressive and multi-faceted range of approaches and methodologies. Establishing a dialogue between literary scholars and archivists that is often absent from other studies, this collection of chapters offers a thought-provoking yet refreshing reminder of the possibilities and difficulties of working with archives. This is undoubtedly a major contribution to our thinking about the literary archive as both source and subject.’ Mark Nixon, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading, UK 'The Boundaries of the Literary Archive is a wide-ranging, informative collection that explores the nature of the archive in this rapidly changing digital age. These dozen chapters, while commenting on particular aspects of the archive, bring a more expansive and comprehensive understanding of the literary archive and its role in research today.’ Thomas F. Staley, University of Texas at Austin, USA 'This book is an excellent introduction to the subject of the literary archive and would interest anyone with an interest in writers such as Daphne du Maurier, Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. Anyone interested in the politics and workings of literary reputation from circa 1880 to the present should read this book, as should graduate students in literature and library school students. Actually, anyone interested in literature, period, would find this book interesting. Archives stir people up far more than one would have thought.' Critical Margins ’...this book is excellent and intriguing to read. It brings us to an understanding of the archive as a rich source and its connections to the past lives of writers.’ Australian Library Journal 'Some publications are to be recommended because they are useful for professional development, some because they are interesting and a good read - this is both. For anyone interested in literary archives it has a lot to offer.' Archives and Reco