Albert Thomas Trevor Allen: Autobiographical and other writings

The collection includes background and related material for Allen's books, an unpublished autobiography in five parts, several other unpublished writings, and a mass of largely unsorted typescripts of smaller items. Box 1 Looking Back (autobiography): 1. Brompton Boy: Prelude to Adventure; 2. A Freelance Life: I collect people and their stories; 3. Freelance at Large: I collect more people with stories; 4. Authors, My Friends: a life's literary contacts; 5. Portrait in Greasepaint (centred on Ruby Miller). 2 files. Come Over Into Macedonia: Souvenirs of a Balkan Campaign. Mainly Personal: A Varied View of Life and People. Ink In My Blood. A Quest for Loving. Papers relating to Allen's book Underworld, including original notes by Charles Brooks, press notices, accounts for sales, and correspondence with agents. Box 2 A Passion for Places: Exploring Town and Country. A Passion for Places: Abroad. They Live in History: Dramas and Romances of the Famous and Infamous. They Loved in History: a Pageant of Real-Life Romances. They Killed for Love and Other Notorious Murders. Remembering a Dancer (i.e. Ivey Collette Reuter). Heavenly Noises: the Kerb Musicians's Saga. Murder Most Natural, and other short stories of 'the lighter side of crime'. Contributions by Allen to 'Twenty Years After: the Battlefields of 1914-1918 Then and Now', ed. Sir Ernest Swinton, published in periodical parts, 1936-1938. Box 3 When Words are Music: Love, Peace and War Poems. 3 files. Verse (Light). This Thing Called Love: the Story of Richard Haston (the first version of We loved in Bohemia). We Loved in Bohemia: a Radio Play adapted from the book. A pilot part-script only, with a synopsis of the remainder. Three Women: a Play by Trevor Allen and Ruby Miller. Jade Elephants: a Play in three acts, by Trevor Allen and Ruby Miller. Rousseau's Confessions: a Comedy in three acts. Rousseau's Women (an early version of the preceding item, with a letter to Allen from Julian Franks). Very Good, My Lord. Scenario for Film or Stage. By Madame Max Darewski (i.e. Ruby Miller). 'SS: General'. Short stories, c. 50 typescripts. Specimens of published articles, etc. Boxes 4-7 Several hundred plays, mainly unsorted typescripts of articles, short stories, radio plays, poems, etc. The papers include some drafts of published and duplicate material. A letter to Allen from the author Cecil Roberts accompanies several articles on Roberts, and there are a few other letters to Allen accompanying the scripts to which they relate.

Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).

Presented by Allen's executor, the National Westminster Bank, 1984.

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.