Press Cuttings

The following series comprises a collection of press cuttings covering a period spanning from the late 1920s to the 1960s, including the critical years of Harold Blundell's literary career. Most of them have been placed into scrapbooks and arranged in a chronological sequence, although others were kept loosely, either within the scrapbooks themselves or in card files. The cuttings themselves relate to articles written by Blundell himself (often under his pseudonym George Bellairs or, less frequently, Hilary Landon) for magazines and newspapers, most notably the Manchester Guardian, to which he contributed regularly during the 1950s. There are also cuttings of reviews of Blundell's work and other articles about the author, many of which bear the labels of the press cuttings agency, Romeike & Curtice Ltd of Chancery Lane, London who evidently forwarded to Blundell articles about himself. Some of the albums also contain additional material.

The majority of the press cuttings had been arranged into files or albums, probably by Blundell himself, except for one item (BLU/5/3) consisting of one file of loose press cuttings which were kept together and placed into a chronological sequence. A few of the albums contained a large quantity of loose press cuttings that were simply placed between the front or rear covers of the volume. In these instances the loose material was removed and transferred to a suitable file to prevent the risk of unnecessary damage. However, the relevant item description below refers to both the album and the file as one whole item, with any separation of material noted both on the front of the file itself and in the catalogue entry.