What kind of material can you find in our collections?

Our detailed acquisition policy is available on request from the Collections team.

The Seven Stories Collections currently contain a variety of materials.

Archival Material:

  • Notes and drafts including research material, early notes, and partial and complete drafts. These can be manuscript and/or typescript with annotations in various hands, including those of authors, editors and copy-editors.
  • Proofs in various stages, often with authorial, editorial or typesetting manuscript annotations
  • Correspondence, including letters from/to editors, agents, writers, illustrators and readers.
  • Contractual and financial material, including royalty statements.
  • Post publication material including publicity material, press cuttings of reviews etc.

Artwork:

Seven Stories collections cover a wide variety of media and technique and may contain:

  • Preparatory research material such as objects, photographs, sketchbooks etc
  • Preliminary sketches and roughs, often within a sequence
  • 'Dummy' books
  • Finished artwork
  • Proofs

Books:

Seven Stories Collections currently hold approximately 400 linear metres of book collections, which include:

  • Book collections formed by individual practictioners, including the working libraries of Faith Jaques and Kaye Webb
  • Individuals' personal collections of fiction and picture books
  • Smaller, specialised book collections
  • Large numbers donated by libraries, including Birmingham City Library, Rotherham, North and South Tyneside libraries, and the Literary & Philosophical Society of Newcastle
  • Collections of books received from publishers, including several thousand Ladybird and Puffin publications

Of course, our holdings vary considerably, depending on a number of factors, including the following:

  • Writers' and illustrators' working methods
    • the number of drafts produced
    • their use of technology
    • their preferred means of communication - letters/phone/email
  • what individual authors/illustrators/editors or their representatives have chosen to retain
  • what individual authors/illustrators/editors choose to offer to Seven Stories.
    • large or entire archives/manuscripts series
    • selective donation e.g. artwork for one or two titles