Records of the times: layers of creation in the George Orwell archive

Abstract

The Canadian archivist Jennifer Douglas has highlighted six layers of archival creation which she argues shape the ways in which a writer’s archive is formed, appraised, enhanced, arranged and interpreted over time. This article applies Douglas’s notion of the six layers of creation to the George Orwell archive, which is held at University College London, by showing the ways in which the archive has been shaped and interpreted over time by various contributors; it discusses not only the value of these contributions, but also how typical such contributions are. The article also discusses the challenge that collections like the Orwell archive pose to our understanding of the concept of the fonds. In agreement with Geoffrey Yeo’s recent writings on the subject, this article concludes that a collection such as the Orwell archive, which has been supplemented with additional material over time, is best understood as a collection of items that reflects the contributions of a number of different creators and custodians, something that is distinct from its main creator’s ‘conceptual’ fonds, which is dispersed across a number of collections.

Keywords:

• Literary archive
• George Orwell
• University College London
• literary manuscripts
• literary correspondence
• diaries

Notes

1. Douglas, ‘Archiving Authors’, 176.

2. Ibid.

3. Douglas, ‘Archiving Authors’, 194.

4. Tener, ‘Problems of Literary Archives’, 228.

5. Tschan, ‘A Comparison of Jenkinson and Schellenberg’, 187.

6. Hobbs, ‘The Character of Personal Archives’, 133.

7. Douglas, ‘Archiving Authors’, 177.

8. A link to the full online catalogue of the Orwell archive can be found at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/a-z/orwell. Accessed January 25, 2016.

9. Yeo, ‘The Conceptual Fonds and the Physical Collection’, 56–57.

10. A collection-level description of the papers of Anthony Burgess can be found at: http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb3104-abms. Accessed January 25, 2016.

11. The full online catalogue of the papers of J. G. Ballard can be found in the British Library’s online archives and manuscripts catalogue: http://searcharchives.bl.uk. Accessed January 25, 2016.

12. Davison, A Life in Letters, vii.

13. Douglas, ‘Archiving Authors’, 178–181.

14. Orwell, ‘Why I Write’, 182.

15. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/D/3.

16. See Crick’s Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry for Sonia Brownell: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/60272. Accessed January 25, 2016.

17. http://searcharchives.bl.uk. Accessed January 25, 2016.

18. A guide to the papers of Philip Larkin can be found at: http://www.hull.ac.uk/arc/collection/philiplarkin/colls.html. Accessed January 25, 2016.

19. Banville, ‘Homage to Philip Larkin’.

20. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/E.

21. Davison, George Orwell: Diaries, 285.

22. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/F.

23. Davison, George Orwell: Diaries, 461.

24. Davison, George Orwell: Diaries, 109.

25. Dicken, ‘Twentieth Century Literary Archives’, 74.

26. Davison, George Orwell: Diaries, 244.

27. Davison, A Life in Letters, 50.

28. Davison, A Life in Letters, 246.

29. Davison, A Life in Letters, xiv.

30. Douglas, ‘Archiving Authors’, 193–194.

31. Bossis, ‘Methodological Journeys through Correspondences’, 69.

32. Dever, ‘Reading Other People’s Mail’, 120.

33. Douglas and MacNeil, ‘Arranging the Self’, 25.

34. Douglas, ‘Archiving Authors’, 183–184.

35. See the homepage for the Orwell archive: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/a-z/orwell. Accessed January 25, 2016.

36. Ibid.

37. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/S.

38. http://searcharchives.bl.uk. Accessed January 25, 2016.

39. http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb3104-abms. Accessed January 25, 2016.

40. Douglas, ‘Archiving Authors’, 184–190.

41. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/az/orwell. Accessed January 25, 2016.

42. https://www.reading.ac.uk/library/about-us/projects/lib-location-register.aspx. Accessed January 25, 2016.

43. http://searcharchives.bl.uk. Accessed January 25, 2016.

44. http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F69594. Accessed January 25, 2016.

45. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/M.

46. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/M/14.

47. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/M/20.

48. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/M/24.

49. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/Q.

50. Douglas and MacNeil, ‘Arranging the Self’, 32.

51. Yeo, ‘The Conceptual Fonds and the Physical Collection’, 57.

52. Nesmith, ‘Still Fuzzy But More Accurate’, 144.

53. Douglas, ‘Original Order, Added Value?’ 52.

54. Douglas, ‘Original Order, Added Value?’ 51.

55. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/A.

56. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/B.

57. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/C.

58. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/N.

59. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/G.

60. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/H.

61. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/L.

62. Yeo, ‘The Conceptual Fonds and the Physical Collection’, 56–57.

63. Yeo, ‘The Conceptual Fonds and the Physical Collection’, 50.

64. Yeo, ‘Custodial History’, 59.

65. Yeo, ‘The Conceptual Fonds and the Physical Collection’, 59.

66. Ibid.

67. Yeo, ‘The Conceptual Fonds and the Physical Collection’, 65.

68. UCL Special Collections: Orwell/H.

69. Douglas, ‘Archiving Authors’, 190–193.

70. Davison, A Kind of Compulsion, xix.

71. Davison, A Kind of Compulsion, xxii.

72. Ibid.

73. Yeo, ‘The Conceptual Fonds and the Physical Collection’, 69.

74. A link to the Orwell Digital Archive can be found at: http://digitool-b.lib.ucl.ac.uk:8881/R?RN=585598525. Accessed January 25, 2016.

75. Yeo, ‘The Conceptual Fonds and the Physical Collection’, 70.

76. Douglas, ‘Archiving Authors’, 265.

77. Douglas, ‘Original Order, Added Value?’ 54.

78. Ibid.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Fitzpatrick

I qualified as an archivist in 2011, and I am currently employed as a cataloguer at the British Library.