Alan Bennett donates his literary archive to the Bodleian Library

"The author and playwright Alan Bennett is presenting his papers as a gift to the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. This remarkable and comprehensive archive comprises materials, letters, and manuscripts relating to a distinguished literary career which began with the revue Beyond the Fringe in 1960 and has spanned nearly five decades. The archive includes original manuscripts, typescripts, handwritten notes and drafts for all Bennett’s stage and television plays, including the plays written for the National Theatre, the autobiographical collections Writing Home (1994) and Untold Stories (2005) plus the manuscripts of his novellas and short-stories, the latest being The Uncommon Reader (2007). What will also come to the Bodleian in due course are Bennett’s annotated editions of his published writings, together with letters and other materials arising from his own marginal notes and afterthoughts. There are also diaries in an unbroken series from 1974 onwards, only a small selection of which has so far been published" - Bodleian Library