This collection comprises the working and personal papers of Dawson Jackson. It includes copies of his published works From This Foundation, A Primer of Necessary Belief, and Against Destruction. It also includes copies of his unpublished prose, in particular his Out of Step, Journal of a Conscientious Objector (1940-1942), (see JDJ/1/1/3/2 . Much of the collection comprises his prodigious output of verse, in various states of revision, including All Is Never Said (1945-1947) and The Ruin (1951-1954); his long travel poems, Rome (1954-1955), This Paradise (1969), Delhi (1957-1963), Time Suspended in Equatorial Africa (1969); and his poems in memory of his second wife, Joan Hart, A Marriage (1986-1993) and The Wound (1985-1993.
Following the revision of his 'Entire Presentable Opus' in 1985, Jackson penned a short autobiographyIntroduction to a Life's Work (1986), in which Jackson outlines his life and work in stages , as follows: age 0-16 (1926-1930); age 20-27 (1930-1937); age 33-37 (1937-1943); age 33-37 (1943-1947), age 38-45 (1948-1957); age 45 (1957-1984), See JDJ/1/3/1/42 The collection also comprises his appointment diaries (1967-1991) and a substantial series of his correspondence with publishers and family and friends.