Douglas Dunn archive
The University Library has recently acquired one of the most extensive archives of a modern writer to become available in recent years. This greatly reinforces both the University's place as a centre of excellence for literary studies and the Library's links with the School of English.
Douglas Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire and has been a Professor within the School of English in St Andrews since 1991. Biographical details can be found here. His comprehensive archive, which is particularly rich in correspondence, represents his career as writer (of poetry, short stories, essays, novels and plays for TV, radio and stage) and critic, journalist, translator, anthologist and editor. It contains most of the manuscripts he has produced from his schooldays to the present including notebooks with revisions.
As a full-time writer, he appears to have had more time and inclination to conduct long correspondences than one finds with many of his contemporaries. Visits at home and abroad (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, France, America, Australia) have created friendships with numerous domestic and foreign writers and academics (e.g. Robert Crawford, Hilda Spear, Chris Wiseman and Christopher Wallace).
The series of letters (spread throughout the archive) with Ted Hughes (11), Seamus Heaney (20), Stewart Conn (44), Dennis Enright (44), Daniel Halpern (22), Michael Longley (50), Charles Montieth (93), Sean O'Brien (27), Tom Paulin (44), Sommer Piotr (45), Peter Redgrove (15), Anthony Thwaite (69) and Hugo Williams (41) are especially notable. It is hoped that more will be identified as cataloguing progresses.
In addition to the 103 boxes received by Special Collections in November, a considerable amount of additional material in Douglas Dunn's possession is also to be transferred to the Library, largely dating from the 1990s and much of it relating to University business. The final details of the deposit agreement, especially in relation to 3rd party copyright, are still under negotiation. We are excited about the prospect of working closely with Douglas Dunn in the identification and cataloguing of the archive and keenly anticipate being able to make the papers available to the academic community and wider public.
Rachel Hart