Special Collections Service

Collections

The library contains the following collections (subjects are in brackets)

Special Collections Service Library Collection
The library collection supports the university's teaching and research interests.,
(Agriculture, Childrens literature, History, History of science, Industrial arbitration, Labour relations, Literature, Manufacturing industry, Printing, Strikes, Theatre)

University of Reading, Samuel Beckett Collection
This is now the world's largest collection of resources about Samuel Beckett, the writer and dramatist. It contains over 600 manuscript, typescript and photocopied typescript items of original Beckett material, including drafts, annotated copies and corrected copies. There are also manuscript notebooks containing a wide variety of material, chiefly dating from the 1930s. Correspondence includes around 70 letters written by Beckett to his lover Pamela Mitchell in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and around 170 items from the correspondence between Beckett and the scholar Ruby Cohn, starting in the 1950s and continuing until the end of Beckett's life. There are 'stage files' relating to over 680 productions of Beckett plays, each containing material such as programmes, publicity material, reviews etc. Printed material includes over 1000 books, including both critical works and editions of Beckett's work in more than 20 languages. There are also over 500 offprints and photocopied articles on Beckett, around 170 periodical titles and over 40 dissertations. The collection contains artwork, including framed works by Avigdor Arikha, Geer van Velde and Henri Hayden, presented to the collection by Beckett himself; designs for Beckett productions; and artists' illustrated books by Avigdor Arikha, H.M. Erhardt, Max Ernst, Sorel Etrog, Jasper Johns and William Hayter. Other material includes over 2500 news cuttings relating to Beckett, around 50 posters from Beckett productions, over 500 photographs, a number of audiovisual recordings, and a remarkable variety of Beckett ephemera. The collection originated in the Samuel Beckett Exhibition held in the University Library in 1971 which contained material donated by Beckett himself and by many friends and admirers from the worlds of literature and theatre. Beckett continued to donate material to the collection up until his death. Subsequent additions have been both donations, from the Beckett Estate and other sources, and purchases. The Beckett International Foundation, (see http://www.library.rdg.ac.uk/colls/bif/index.html), a charitable trust set up in 1988, administers and co-ordinates the collection, as well as being responsible for Beckett events held at the University.,The world's largest collection of resources about Samuel Beckett, the writer and dramatist.
(Authors, Drama, Playwrights, Theatre)

University of Reading, Archive of British Publishing and Printing
The Publishing Archive, the largest and most significant collection of unique material on this subject in the world, covers some of the major UK publishers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collections contain correspondence with authors, manuscript drafts, readers’ reports, proofs, editorial material, catalogues, books, original artwork for illustrations and book jackets, ledgers, accounts and business and marketing records. It is a key resource for a wide range of research including literary biography, book history and the economics of publishing. The Publishing Archive includes material from the following: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, Baillière, Tindall & Cox, George Bell & Sons Ltd, A. & C. Black, The Bodley Head Ltd, Jonathan Cape Ltd, Chatto & Windus Ltd, William Clowes & Sons, Crosby Lockwood, Darton & Harvey, De La Rue and Company Ltd, Elkin Mathews, Gaberbocchus Press, Heinemann Educational Books, The Hogarth Press Ltd, Keepsake Press, Ladybird Books, London Typographical Designers Ltd, The Longman Group, Macmillan and Company Ltd, Peter Owen Ltd, Phoenix House Ltd, G. P. Putnam, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Secker & Warburg Ltd, Swan Sonnenschein, Virago Press, Frederick Warne, Werner Laurie Ltd. Reading University Library has many other collections relating to the British book industry and book history, which form a valuable resource for the study of all aspects of book production and printing. As well as these collections, authors’ papers, the rare book collection, and incunabula are also used by researchers into book history. For a full list of the publishing archives, please see the list of Reading University Library Special Collections at: http://www.reading.ac.uk/library/colls/special/collsindex.html ,The largest and most significant collection of archive material on British publishing in the world.
(Printing, Printing industry, Publishing, Publishing industry)