Edward James Hughes Papers

This material is held atBritish Library Manuscript Collections

  • Reference
    • GB 58 Add MS 88918
  • Alternative Id.
      (ark) ark:/81055/vdc_100000000035.0x000069
  • Dates of Creation
    • 18 Dec 1890-20 Mar [2005]
  • Language of Material
    • Bosnian Dutch English French German Hebrew Icelandic Italian Slovenian Turkish
  • Physical Description
    • 483 folders, packages, volumes, boxes and items

Scope and Content

Archive of the poet, writer and Poet Laureate Edward James (Ted) Hughes (b 1930, d 1998), including literary manuscripts, research notes and unpublished material, correspondence, press cuttings and professional papers. The archive also includes material relating to Hughes’s involvement with the publication of foreign poets in English in ‘Modern Poetry in Translation’ and elsewhere; papers relating to poetry anthologies that he edited and the administration of the Sylvia Plath estate.

Much of the material in the Hughes archive is undated and when this occurs notes have been added in the 'Scope and content' field.

Arrangement

The archive is arranged as follows:

  • Add 88918/1-6: Drafts of poetry, prose, plays, radio scripts and non-fiction
  • Add 88918/7-12: Working notes on multiple subjects including unpublished work
  • Add 88918/13-16: Poetry Anthologies
  • Add 88918/17-26: Translation
  • Add 88918/27-34: Professional Papers
  • Add 88918/35-42: Correspondence
  • Add 88918/43-120: Writings and enclosed material by others
  • Add 88918/121-127: Subject files
  • Add 88918/128-129: Diaries and Notebooks
  • Add 88918/130-131: Press cuttings and reviews
  • Add 88918/132-137: Sylvia Plath
  • Add 88918/138-143: Material written about Hughes
  • Add 88918/144-149: Miscellaneous material

British Library arrangement.

Access Information

Available for research unless otherwise stated

Not Public Record(s)

Acquisition Information

Purchased from Mrs Carol Hughes in May 2008

Physical Characteristics and/or Technical Requirements

465 folders, 11 oversize items (5 in melinex enclosures), 4 oversize volumes, 2 boxes and 1 envelope

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright for unpublished material in the Hughes archive created by Ted Hughes and Edith Hughes is held by Mrs Carol Hughes. Permission to publish, quote or reproduce must be obtained from the rights' holder, Mrs Carol Hughes. Forms requesting permission from Mrs Hughes can be obtained from the Imaging Services department at the British Library.

Related Material

Audio cassettes from Rosemarie Rowley, John Dentith and Nora Carr were removed from the correspondence with which they were originally received and they can now been found in the British Library's Sound Archive. The references for the files containing the letters and the cassettes in the Sound Archive references are as follows- Rosemarie Rowley, Add MS 88918/35/28 - C1409/1; Nora Carr, Add MS 88918/36/4 - C1409/2 and John Dentith, Add MS 88918/35/6 - C1409/3. Notes of these references can be found in the scope and content of each of the relevant files.

The British Library holds manuscripts of and relating to Ted Hughes the details of which are as follows: Add MS 83684-83698 (Correspondence and literary manuscripts of Ted Hughes and L. Baskin); Add MS 53784 (Verse and prose of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath); Add MS 78756-78761 (Ted Hughes correspondence with Keith Sagar); Add MS 74257 (Correspondence of Ted Hughes and A. Skea); Add MS 83260 (Letters from Ted Hughes to Rosemarie Rowley); Add MS 88612 (Letters to E. Compton from Ted Hughes and others); Add MS 88613 (Letters to J. Brown from Ted Hughes); Add MS 88614 (Letters, etc., to P. Keen from Ted Hughes); Add MS 88615 (Papers relating to the publication 'River'); Add MS 88616 (Letters to Terence McCCaughey and his wife Ohna from Ted Hughes); and Add MS 88617 (Correspondence, etc., of G. Hughes with Ted Hughes and others ). Refer to the British Library Sound Archive catalogues for recordings of Hughes reading his work and other recordings. Hughes archival material can also be found in the following institutions: Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, Emory University; Special Collections, Exeter University Library; Special Collections and Archives, Liverpool University Library; Lilly Library, Indiana University; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries; Washington University, St Louis; McPherson Library, University of Victoria, Canada.

Additional Information

Partially reserved - some material in Add MS 88918/35/1-36, Add MS 88918/36/1-23, Add MS 88918/128/1-5 and Add MS 88918/129/1-18 has been reserved for Data Protection reasons (see individual catalogue entries for further information). Notebooks in Add MS 88918/129/1-18 are unavailable until conservation work has been carried out on them.