John le Carré at the ‘Zeit Forum Kultur’ in Hamburg, 10 November 2008 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
The archive of David Cornwell (1931-2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré, has been expanded to include drafts of his later novels (post-2010) and non-fiction work, correspondence and research relating to almost all of his novels, and scripts for both realised and unrealised film and television adaptations. Cornwell was best known for his espionage novels, inspired by his years working in both MI5 and MI6 in the 1950s and 1960s, many following the fictional intelligence officer George Smiley. These include The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (1974) and Smiley’s People (1979). He also used his work to explore wider global issues such as pharmaceutical corruption, in The Constant Gardener (2001), and the War on Terror, in A Most Wanted Man (2008). His 26th novel, Silverview, was published posthumously in 2021, whilst many of his novels have been adapted into successful films and television series.
Over 300 new boxes of material have been added to the existing John le Carré archive, previously comprising only manuscript and typescript novel drafts, offering a much greater insight into Cornwell’s research and writing processes. The newly catalogued material includes hundreds of handwritten novel drafts, notebooks full of character, plot and research notes, correspondence regarding edits, research trips and publicity, and scripts for film, radio and television adaptations. In addition to further demonstrating the meticulous technique that went into the creation of each of his novels, this expanded archive uncovers drafts of the novel Cornwell was writing when he died in December 2020, The George Smiley Years, as well as scripts of an array of both unrealised adaptations and entirely new (non-adaptation) plays and television shows. Readers can explore the countless iterations of Cornwell’s novel drafts, the depth with which he researched the people and places he brought to life, and a wealth of previously unseen stories and characters.
Cataloguing work of Cornwell’s correspondence files, interviews, speeches and personal papers is ongoing, and the archive will be further expanded in 2025.
At the end of August, members of the Archives and Records Association gathered in Birmingham for conference, and I was grateful to be among them for a day. I chose to attend the first day, partially for that early-days energy, but mostly because one of the themes was ‘Digital Recordkeeping and the Cloud’. As a trainee in digital archiving, this seemed too on-the-nose to miss.
The venue was as practical as the location, but the sun shone in on a cosy array of sponsor stands and bleary-eyed delegates as we shuffled to find our preferred caffeinated medium. Then took our seats for the keynote. Alistair Brown shared with us his observations on the archive – and wider heritage sector – from the perspective of a funder. He touched on key challenges ahead, particularly climate change and ecosystem concerns which intersect with issues of digitalisation and data use; as well as giving us an overview of the National Lottery’s Heritage 2033 strategy.
The views of Birmingham were quite striking, as can be seen here in this evening view of the Birmingham skyline – featuring a statue of Queen Victoria. Photo taken by E.Morris
Alistair’s keynote foreshadowed the themes of the day: Climate Advocacy and Education, Conservation, Passive and Sustainable Storage, and, of course, Digital Recordkeeping and the Cloud. The last of these proved much more popular than perhaps even the organisers were anticipating and a full lecture room meant that for the first session I instead dipped into a talk focussed on converting existing buildings into suitable archives. A thought-provoking offering from Oberlanders Architects, and an attractive option for those with buildings of note to make use of, potentially the only option for those of limited means, and potentially a greener solution that pleases the local planning committee.
I left lunch early to get a spot in the Digital theme for the afternoon and left the tea-break even earlier so I might get a spot on a chair rather than the floor for the second afternoon session! Across these, six speakers brought their take on topics such as: the carbon footprint of our data, the tension between what to keep and what to delete, encouraging better data storage practise, and of course what methods we might use to achieve these aims.
Anne Grzybowski (Heriot-Watt University) reminded us all of the carbon-footprint incurred by the ROT – the redundant, obsolete, or transitory documents and records we haphazardly accumulate unless management is routine and effective. ROT has always been a challenge for record managers, but are we more tempted to seek ways to simply increase our data budget than sort it out? The digital sphere has the potential to be “out of sight, out of mind” in a way that physical records cannot hope to be, but those charged with managing those records need to have a holistic view of the costs of storage, above and beyond the financial. Laura Peaurt took this further, looking at the options considered by the University of Nottingham for digital storage and how sustainable these were.
Buzzing in my mind as I stretched my legs around Birmingham’s canals between the talks and supper were a couple of thoughts: forefront of these is the trust organisations, particularly archives, must now place in external commercial organisations for the safe-keeping of their records and materials. Very few speakers started from a position other than a subscription to Microsoft 365. We spoke at length about the Cloud – a storage reality that means remote infrastructure, potentially residing in entirely different nations. While the available options are not entirely within our control, it would be naive to think that recordkeeping or archiving will be exempt from issues such as the mass outage Microsoft saw at the end of July. I was surprised that rather than being discussed at all, it seemed taken for granted that we would pin our digital preservation hopes on commerical cloud servers (and such like).
Not far behind this thought was “how will we sort it all out?!” We know that we are creating veritable digi-tonnes of data every day, both as individuals and organisations. Across the speakers I had heard, many attested to the truth we all suspect: many of us are poor at organising our digital lives, wasteful with the space we use, irresponsible with what we keep and what we don’t. So, what will the archivists of the future inherit? As I have discovered in my own work, the best intentions of archivists-past can leave archivists-present scratching their heads (or worse, shaking their fists).
Supper was served in the Banqueting Suite of Birmingham’s Council Chambers. A gorgeous space to reflect and network, or just stare up at the ceiling! Photo taken by E.Morris
If nothing else the ARA conference has inspired me to keep thinking big, and encourage those around me to do so as well. To forge future-oriented solutions, not simply plug the gaps now. With half an eye on what AI might do in this sphere, the time is ripe for us to build systems that just might cause Archivists of the future to say “I’m glad they thought of that”.
For readers who need to apply for a reader’s card, please note that the Admissions Office will be closed on Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 May 2024 due to a system upgrade.
For any applicant who has pre-ordered material two staff members of the Admissions team will be stationed in Blackwell Hall (in front of the big screen). They will check your application form and ID documents and provide you with an official letter advising library staff to allow you access on both dates.
We will not be able to issue any permits for University card holders to take guests to the Duke Humfrey’s either on the 15th or 16th of May.
Anne Barbara Ridler OBE (30 Jul 1912–15 Oct 2001), the daughter of Rugby School housemaster Henry Bradby and childrens’ author Violet Bradby, was an English poet whose first job was as a secretary for the poet T.S. Eliot at the publisher Faber and Faber. Early in life she met the poet, novelist and theological writer Charles Williams, a member of Oxford’s Inklings group (along with J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, who also have extensive archival holdings in the Bodleian, see for example the Barfield catalogue). Anne maintained a close friendship with Charles Williams until his death in 1945 and her archive includes their extensive correspondence. She married the printer Vivian Ridler in 1938 and raised a family while also publishing ten volumes of her poetry and several verse plays (Anne Ridler in the Poetry Archive). Later in life she translated, mainly Italian, libretti for opera companies including the English National Opera. A practicing Anglican all her life, she had a particular interest in Christian poetry and wrote and lectured on poetry and poets including William Shakespeare, Thomas Traherne and T.S. Eliot. Her Collected Poems were published in 1994. She was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1998 and was awarded the Cholmondeley Award for poetry. In 2001 she was appointed OBE for services to literature.
Vivian Hughes Ridler CBE (2 Oct 1913-13 Jan 2009) was a printer and typographer who founded a private press while still in school. In 1931 he apprenticed to a printing firm in Bristol and in 1936 he took a job with Oxford University Press (OUP) as assistant to the Printer of the University of Oxford, John Johnson, whose personal collection now forms the core of the Bodleian’s John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, one of the largest and most important ephemera collections in the world. In 1938 Vivian married the poet Anne Bradby, who in addition to being the daughter of Henry and Violet Bradby was the niece of Sir Humphrey Milford, the publisher at the London office of OUP, and as a result Vivian was summarily fired by John Johnson, who considered Sir Humphrey Milford a rival. During World War II, Vivian Ridler served with the Royal Air Force as an intelligence officer. After he was demobilised in 1947 he became a lecturer in typography and a freelance designer. In 1948 he returned to the OUP and from 1958 until he retired in 1978 he held the post of Printer to the University of Oxford at OUP and from 1968-1969 was president of the British Federation of Master Printers. With his own Perpetua Press and other private imprints like Amate Press he published around thirty books from his garden shed during his retirement, including College Graces of Oxford and Cambridge (a different edition can now be found in the Bodleian shop) and some of Anne Ridler’s own work, including Profitable wonders: aspects of Thomas Traherne (SOLO).
Also newly catalogued and available is a separate album of early jobbing printing work by Vivian Ridler’s Perpetua Press.
The archive of the artist Richard Shirley Smith is now catalogued and available to readers at the Weston Library.
Figure 1 Photograph of Richard Shirley Smith (MS. 21920 photogr. 44)
Richard Shirley Smith began his artistic career studying at the Slade School of Fine Art, before moving to Rome for a few years, a period reflected in a large portion of his following work. In 1963 he became a lecturer at the St. Albans School of Art, before taking up a position as Head of the Art Department at Marlborough College in 1966. Although he continued creating artwork throughout this time, it was during the 1970s when his work began to gather momentum.
From the late 1970s into the 2000s, Shirley Smith’s murals were a fixture in London’s interior design scene and featured in a number of magazines, including Vogue. Today, we are fortunate to have three such murals on display in the Weston Library, which we welcome readers to view next time they visit.
Not to be confined to bricks-and-mortar, Shirley Smith also established his work in the publishing world. His intricate wood engravings graced the cover and filled the pages of numerous special edition publications, including those produced by The Folio Society. Additionally, he was commissioned to create bookplate designs for several society figures, each showcasing the individual personality of the client, including several appearances of family pets. His contributions to a florilegium for Highgrove House, designed in conjunction with Charles III, then Prince Charles, can be considered a highlight.
It is with his paintings and collages, however, that we see Shirley Smith’s own artistic preferences come to the fore. Included amongst these works are several paintings depicting groups of mischievous Pulcinella, my personal favourites, alongside thoughtfully constructed still life scenes and fabulous surrealist designs, many of which were displayed during a comprehensive exhibition at the Ashmolean in 1985.
The archive contains a small number of personal papers and materials relating to various publications and exhibitions. However, the strength of the collection lies in its representation of the diverse breadth of Shirley Smith’s work, with an extensive series containing original artwork in the form of: sketchbooks, prints, photographs, planning works and over 150 printing blocks, including both linocuts and woodblocks. This material presents a comprehensive overview of Richard Shirley Smith’s oeuvre, providing a wonderful snapshot into the work and life of an influential modern British artist.
Figure 3 Woodblock for A Point of Departure (1967) (JL 1072/9)
Averil Cameron is a historian of late antiquity, classics and Byzantine studies. She was professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History at King’s College London and Warden of Keble College, Oxford, from 1994 to 2010.
She has been associated with various academic societies including as founding director of the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College London. Since 2018 she has been President of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.
She has published several works, including; Agathias (1970), History as Text (1989) and The Byzantines (2006). The archive comprises papers and correspondence mainly relating to Cameron’s academic work. This includes books, published and unpublished lectures, and articles.
Dr Emilie Savage-Smith is a historian of science specialising in Islamic celestial globes. Islamic celestial globes are spherical maps of the sky that give the viewer a ‘God’s’ eye view of the stars and constellations, with Earth at the centre, originating from lands where Islam was the predominant religion.
Savage-Smith graduated from DePauw University in 1962 and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1969. She was professor of the History of Islamic Science in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford from 2006 to 2019, and a fellow and archivist of St Cross College, Oxford, 2004-2021.
She has authored several books, including Islamicate Celestial Globes: Their History, Construction and Use, 1985. She was named a fellow of the British Academy, 2010, and the Medieval Academy of America, 2020.
This collection is the largest research archive of material on Islamic celestial globes in the world, with over two-hundred globes and instruments dating back to 1080 featured. It comprises her papers, photographs and drawings collected over the course of her career. Her collection of objects was donated to the History of Science Museum.
Due to staff illness, the Bodleian Library’s Admissions Office, based in the Weston Library, will remain closed today, 15 August, but will reopen from Wednesday 16 August (with a brief closure from 12:00-13:00 on Friday 18 August).
We offer sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
Joanna Trollope. Reproduced with kind permission of www.barkerevans.com
The archive of the novelist and Oxford alumna Joanna Trollope, generously donated to the Bodleian by Joanna herself between 2014 and 2021, has now been catalogued and is available to view at the Weston Library.
A prolific author of numerous best-sellers, Joanna first started out writing historical fiction in the 1970s whilst working as an English teacher. By 1980 – the year her novel Parson Harding’s Daughter was awarded the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists’ Association – she had become a full-time author. Her only non-fiction title, Britannia’s Daughters, was published in 1983.
During the 1980s, Joanna’s writing evolved to contemporary fiction and The Rector’s Wife (1991) was her first number one bestseller. Her works have been translated into over twenty different languages as well as being adapted for audiobook, television, radio, and theatre. In 2010, Joanna was awarded the Romantic Novelists’ Association Lifetime Achievement Award. She was made an OBE in 1996 for services to charity and a CBE in 2019 for services to literature.
Manuscript draft of Parson Harding’s Daughter (1979), Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MS. 9515/29. Reproduced with kind permission of Joanna Trollope.
The undoubted highlights of the collection are the neatly-tied handwritten manuscript drafts of Joanna’s novels, ranging from her earliest work Eliza Stanhope (first published in 1978) right up to An Unsuitable Match (published in 2018). The collection also includes several notebooks demonstrating Joanna’s careful background research into the topics and places featured in her work, covering anything from football matches to inheritance tax. They bely the preconception that her characters are consigned to cosy, country lives but instead deal with some of the tougher elements of life – bereavement, adoption, sexuality, and self-harm. They also show how much Joanna’s work mirrors life in the 1990s and 2000s and in years to come the collection will be of much interest to any one researching (to paraphrase Joanna’s family’s famous Victorian author ) ‘the way we lived then’.
