Note: This brief collection description is an accession record. The
collection is not fully processed or cataloged; no biographical sketch,
descriptions of series, or indexes are available.
Acquisition: Purchase, 2007
Access: Open for research
Processed by: Stephen Cooper, 2007
RLIN Record
ID: None
The majority of Series I. is made up of handwritten drafts of Unsworth's novels, arranged chronologically. The earliest works are written on loose sheets and the later, beginning with Sugar and Rum (1988), are written into notebooks. Only one novel, The Greeks Have a Word for It (1967), is not represented by any materials in the archive. Additional notebooks contain notes, research, and journal entries related to novels also beginning in the 1980s, as well as notebooks from as early as 1965 with mainly general content not necessarily relating to any of his works. In many of these notebooks is a wide range of research that is reflected in the expansive themes and topics of Unsworth's historical novels, covering places and periods of time as varied as fourteenth-century England, Renaissance Venice, an eighteenth-century slave ship that sails from England to Florida, turn-of-the-twentieth-century Constantinople, and twentieth-century London. Typescripts with handwritten corrections are included with the materials beginning with After Hannibal (1996), and three folders contain articles, essays, short stories, travel pieces, and book reviews and introductions. Interviews given by Unsworth between 1987 and 1999 for magazines, journals, and one website fill the final folder of this series.
Series II. contains three folders of professional correspondence to and from Unsworth's publishers and agents, much of it typed with some handwritten letters and a large number of printed emails and faxes. Perhaps as much as half of the correspondence is from Giles Gordon, Unsworth's longtime literary agent, while the remainder consists of letters to and from editors at the publishing house of Hamish Hamilton, later acquired by Penguin. Three additional folders contain correspondence with friends and fans, for the most part related to one or more of his novels. All of the correspondence was in rough chronological order upon arrival, and a small amount of organizing was done to complete this arrangement.
Box Folder Description
1 1-3 THE PARTNERSHIP (1966), handwritten draft THE HIDE (1970) 4-6 Handwritten 1st draft 7-8 Handwritten 2nd draft 2 1 Handwritten 2nd draft, con't MOONCRANKER'S GIFT (1973) 2 Handwritten draft "of just 30 pages" 3-5 Handwritten draft, titled "The Groom" THE BIG DAY (1976) 6-8 Early handwritten draft 3 1-2 Handwritten 2nd draft PASCALI'S ISLAND (1980) 3-4 Handwritten draft 5 "Derived notebook" THE RAGE OF THE VULTURE (1982) 6-7 Early handwritten draft 4 1 Early handwritten draft, cont'd 2-6 "Complete" handwritten drafts, part 1 and part 2 7 Small notebook 5 1-2 Notebooks "A" and "B" STONE VIRGIN (1985) 3-5 Handwritten draft 6 "Venice notebook" SUGAR AND RUM (1988) 7 Handwritten 1st draft notebook 8 Handwritten 2nd draft notebook 1 6 1-2 Handwritten 2nd draft notebooks 2 and 3 3 Handwritten rewrite of 2nd draft pp 141-169 SACRED HUNGER (1992) 4-8 Handwritten final draft 7 1 "2nd workbook B" MORALITY PLAY (1995) 2 Handwritten preliminary draft, titled "The Devil's Fool" 3 Handwritten 2nd draft notebook 1 4 Handwritten 2nd draft notebook 2; also contains 50 2nd draft pages of AFTER HANNIBAL, titled "Umbrian Mosaic" AFTER HANNIBAL (1996; drafts titled "Umbrian Mosaic") 5-6 Handwritten rough draft and 3rd draft 7-8 Handwritten 2nd draft 8 1-2 Typescript with handwritten corrections LOSING NELSON (1999) 3 Handwritten preliminary draft notebook A 4-5 Handwritten 2nd draft, titled "England Expects" 6-9 Handwritten 3rd draft 10 Notebook 9 1 Two notebooks 2-3 Typescript with handwritten corrections THE SONGS OF THE KINGS (2002; drafts titled "Iphigeneia") 4 Handwritten 1st draft 5-6 Handwritten 2nd draft 7-8 Handwritten 3rd draft 10 1 Handwritten 3rd draft, cont'd 2-3 Typescript with handwritten corrections 4 "Iphigeneia" notebook CRETE (2004) 5 Handwritten draft 6 Typescript with handwritten corrections THE RUBY IN HER NAVEL (2006; handwritten drafts titled "The Mirrors of Favara") 7-8 Handwritten 1st draft 9 Handwritten 2nd draft 11 1-2 Handwritten 2nd draft, cont'd 3-4 Handwritten 3rd draft 5-7 Typescript with handwritten corrections 12 1 Notebook Shorter works and related materials 2 Articles, essays, book introductions 3 Book reviews, 1986-2006 Handwritten notebooks 4 1965-1983 5 1978-1991 6 1983-1987 13 1 1983-2002 2 Interviews of Unsworth, 1987-1999 3 Short stories and travel pieces, 1993-2002
Professional letters 4 1987-1993 5 1994-1995 6 1996-2007 Personal and fan mail 7 1974-1992 8 1993-1998 9 1999-2006, undated
Reference queries to: reference@hrc.utexas.edu
Return to Finding Aids