Finding Aid

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Scope and Contents

The materials in this collection consist of the files assembled by Margaret Drabble from 1990 - 1995 and used in the writing of her monumental 1995 biography of fellow British novelist Sir Angus Wilson. The files have been categorized by UI Special Collections into five sections:

Administrative Materials, which contain papers concerning the logistics surrounding the research and writing;

Alphabetical Files, which comprises the largest portion of the collection The files contain correspondence, photocopies of documents (including letters to and from Wilson), and other materials arranged alphabetically by the last name of the person sourced or, in a few cases, the subject term. The files contain letters from famous correspondents including Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Louis Auchincloss, John Bayley, Saul Bellow, Frederick Busch, Hortense Calisher, William Golding, Nadine Gordimer, Ian McKellen, Michael Moorcock, Iris Murdoch, V.S. Naipaul, Michael Ondaatje, V.S. Pritchett, Muriel Spark, Peter Shaffer, Stephen Spender, and Peter Ustinov. These files have been retained in the same order as Drabble originally arranged them. An Index to the Alphabetical Files provides a full list of the subjects here.

Angus Wilson: A Biography: The original typescript and revised, complete typescript of Drabble's work, which include corrections, inserts, and notes made or added by Drabble;

Research Materials, comprised of raw material (such as subject files, copies of vital documents, etc.) that Drabble used to assemble her biography; and

Notebooks, consisting of the numerous notebooks Drabble used in her research.

Drabble's research files are a valuable contribution to the study of biography. They provide a accessible window into the methods by which a skilled biographer assembles and manipulates material to create a significant historical and literary monument. In addition, they nicely complement the Papers of Angus Wilson by providing an "outsider's" view of his life and works and presenting much of the raw material that goes into making up a life.

Note: In the box list, "AW" refers to Angus Wilson. "MD" refers to Margaret Drabble.

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Biographical Note

Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, on June 5, 1939. She read English at Newnham College, Cambridge and, after leaving college, joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1960, where she understudied for Vanessa Redgrave. However, she left the RSC after only a few years, to pursue a career as a novelist. Her first novel, A Summer Bird Cage, was published in 1963. Drabble would go on to publish a number of acclaimed novels, including, among others, The Millstone (winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, 1965), Jersualem the Golden (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, 1967), The Needle's Eye (1972), The Realms of Gold (1975), The Middle Ground (1980), The Gates of Ivory (1991), and The Witch of Exmoor (1996).

In addition to her works of fiction, Drabble is a notable literary scholar, who has edited several noted volumes (such as The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 1985 and 2000), produced works on Wordsworth and Hardy, to name a few subjects, and written full-length studies of novelists Angus Wilson and Arnold Bennett. She has also written numerous plays, short stories, and screenplays.

Drabble married her second husband, the writer Michael Holdroyd, in 1982. She was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1980, and in 2008 was promoted to Dame Commander of the British Empire, for services to literature.

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Related Materials

WILSON, ANGUS (FRANK JOHNSTONE), 1913-1991. Papers of Angus Wilson, 1906-1992. 77.5 ft.
British author. Heavily revised manuscripts and typescripts of Wilson's short stories, reviews, novels, lectures, articles, and television scripts; notebooks, correspondence, etc. For some additional information about the collection , see Frederick P. W. McDowell, "The Angus Wilson Collection" MsC199. (Finding Aid)

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Box Contents List

Box 1	Administrative Materials
Folder	Items
1	Appendices, including edits
2	Chronology of AW's life
3 - 5	Correspondence Notes
6 - 8	Edits
9	General and Assorted
10 - 12	Inserts
13	Interview List
14	MD's Correspondence with Publishers
15 - 17	Primary Materials Box Contents Lists
	Alphabetical Files
18	Alphabetical List of Interviewees
19	Aberystwyth - Anrep
20	Anti-Apartheid - Australia
21	Bacon - Binding
22	Birch - Boyle
23	Bradbury - British Museum
24	Broadbent - Byng
25	Cain - Chopping
26	Christ Scientist - Contracts
Box 2	Alphabetical Files
1	Cook - Crittall
2	Croft - Daymond
3	Deakin - Dyson
4	Eastbourne - Ford
5	Fordham - Furbank
6	GCHQ - Goff
7	Golding - Graham-Young
8	Gray - Hawtrey
9	Healey - Hooper
10	Hornby - Hyatt King
11	Ikeshiro - Johnstone-Wilson
12	Joll - Kocen
13	Kosterlitz - Longberg
14	Larriere - Lyttleton-Hart Davis
15	Macdonald - Matsumara
16	McCallum - Merry
17	Merton College - Montherlong
18	Moorcock - Northampton
19	Observer - Paucker
20	Peace Pledge Union - Prince
Box 3	Alphabetical Files
1	Pritchett - Restuarants
2	Reve - Robinson
3	Roger - Russell
4	Safterstein - Serikawa
5	Seteais - Storr
6	Strachey - Thistlewaite
7	Thompson - Tynan
8	UCLA - Walpole
9	Warburg - Westminister
10	White - Wollheim
11	Wood - Young
	Angus Wilson: A Biography
12 - 16	Original typescript with corrections, inserts and notes
17	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Foreword and Chapters 1 - 5
18	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 6 - 10
19	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 11 - 14
20	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 15 - 17
21	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 18 - 20
Box 4	Angus Wilson: A Biography
1	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 21 - 22
2	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 23 - 24
3	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 25 - 26
4	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 27 - 28
5	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 29 - 30
6	Typescript with corrections and inserts, Chapters 31 - 32
	Research Materials
7	Autobiography (AW)
8	Bibliographies
9	Bury St. Edmunds Theatre, and TV Reviews by AW, 1962-1963
10	Conradi, Peter
11	Family Information
12	Family Trees
13	Forster, E.M.
14	Halio, Jay/University of Delaware
15	Holdroyd, Michael (Famous Writers School, 1969-1974)
16	Jussawilla, Adil
17	Kissane, Joseph
18	McEwan, Ian
19	McGill University
20	Miscellaneous
21	Mitchel, Stuart
22	Mitchell, Julian
23	Photocopies of AW's Correspondence - Alphabetical
24	Photocopies of AW's Correspondence with Geoffrey Wright
25	Photocopies of AW's Correspondence with Publishers
26 - 27	Photocopies of Materials on AW and/or by AW
28	Serikawa, Kazu
29	Ship Passenger Lists
	Subject Files
30	Ashampstead School
31	Bletchley Park
32	Bury St. Edmunds
33	Caney Family/South Africa
34	Childrens Stories
35	Iowa
36`	Kipling
37	Scotland
	Vital Statistics
38	Birth Certificates
39	Death Certificates
40	Marriage Certificates
41	Wills
Boxes 5 - 6	Notebooks