Overview: I was suitably nervous about working with archives for the first time as I had no clue what to expect. This piece discusses my processes of prepping for and carrying out archive work in the British Library, the highlights, and the mistakes that I made along the way. It is written in the hope that it will assist others who may be nervous about taking on archival projects for the first time, assure them that it is not as daunting as it appears, and share the exciting manuscripts I found relating to the Virago Press. The British Library is a great place to start if you are interested in archival work!
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a small stipend from my funding body, the Midlands 4 Cities, which allowed me to spend a week in the British Library’s Virago Press archive. As much of my research is contingent on these materials, it is fair to say that for the past couple of months I have been chomping at the bit to get my teeth into these manuscripts, so this was a great opportunity for me to make some headway with my primary materials research.
Before the Trip:
As a fledgling archivist on her first research trip, I was *somewhat* apprehensive about the practicalities of archive work (where to go, how to call up files, how to handle them) and how to maximise my workload in accordance with the time limits to do the research and vast quantities of manuscripts to see. Therefore, I timed the trip to align with one of the British Library’s in-person induction sessions. This is the first year since the pandemic that sessions such as this could go ahead again, with certain obvious caveats on numbers, and so the library had designed a hybrid chain of seminars relating to their various stores and which culminated in four offered half-day sessions at the Library. I found that this hybrid method allowed me to tailor my research needs to the offered courses without having to learn about content unrelated to my own research (no doubt a lot of this is also fascinating, but not a priority over what I am personally researching).
Prior to this event, I attended the modules ‘Get Started with the British Library’ and ‘Contemporary Society and Culture’ given by Library specialists over zoom. ‘Get Started with the British Library’ focused on information about the library as a whole, its history, its purpose and went on to divulge the mechanics of using the catalogues and collections generally, such as the daily limit on ordering books and files and the ways to pre-order material before you arrive- the limits are 10 files per day, with 4 pre-orders and 4 active manuscript files (aka files you have waiting for you behind the reference collections desk in the Manuscripts room), for reference. As a deposit library, The British Library holds every book published in the United Kingdom so being able to navigate the building and sheer 56 million items without getting overwhelmed is naturally the first place to begin when getting acquainted with the BL; this session helped in mitigating this. The talk can also be found on YouTube, and I will link it below. In ‘Contemporary Society and Culture’ we were given an overview of what collections the library holds in regard to the 20th and 21st Centuries with pre-recorded materials, then we had the opportunity to move into break rooms tailored more specifically to aspects of the Contemporary Society catalogues: zines, archives, oral histories, and official publications were some of the sessions offered. Additionally, it was possible to move between these rooms to learn about the wide array of content available were you to have a multifaceted archival project to undertake. However, I spent the session in the archive room knowing that this was the aspect of the library I would be using over all others.
I was fortunate that I wasn’t starting from scratch in discovering and locating which archives I would need for my research. This cut a large portion of the process of archive research prep. Before I started my Ph.D. I knew that Virago’s archive was essential to me and that the predominant bulk of its manuscripts are at the BL. After the online sessions I was better prepared to use the BL’s website interface to search out and navigate the specific collection, but still unsure as to the specifics of what my collection held. The only way to get this information was to start the work. Knowing I had 4 full days of archive research, and that I could take out 10 files per day, I made a priority list of my top 40 files to browse from the 518 strong collection by using the collection’s guide to comb through the files it held. Although I knew the maximum number of files I could look at was 40, I was well aware of how unrealistic it would be for me to get through that much material, at least with any form of substance. While I aimed to scope out the collection on my trip, I wanted at least some juicy materials to come back with and sink my teeth into on my return to Nottingham. I narrowed my list down to 20 files and again reduced it to 10. The top 10 files were the ones that I would look at with certainty and I aimed to pick from the remaining files I had isolated as and when they appealed to me or seemed to flow with the trajectory of my findings in real-time. I sketched out a general itinerary, created many, many file log masters to fill in as I went along, and spoke to my lead supervisor, Sean, about how to take on the trip.
Monday:
Of course, there are only so many online events and preparatory documents that can ready you for the actuality of visiting the building and beginning archive research; so, suitcase, laptop, and a large coconut cappuccino in tow, I boarded my train to St Pancras on a bright Monday morning, bouncing between excitement and nerves for my week ahead. After sorting out a brief dilemma regarding my hotel (it wasn’t there – through the windows the building was a blank canvas, nothing but white walls and certainly no hotel rooms, the hotel sign across the door of the, once, the entrance had been stripped away leaving nothing but empty potted plants to signal that this was once a hotel), there was nothing left to do but turn back the way I came and head off to the Library for my afternoon induction.
Before the session, the attendees had an opportunity to collect our Reader Passes, which are necessary to getting into the reading rooms and requesting materials- it also gets you 10% off in the gift shop, as I would discover later. I already had a pass, booked and collected from a fleeting visit a couple of months back, therefore, I arrived up for the start of the main session. As all valuable events have, there was coffee, cake, and an opportunity to network with the other attendees. I met a man doing a fascinating project on hauntology and his experiences of European cabaret in the 80s, hi Alan, if you’re somehow reading this. We were then split into three groups and taken around three activities: first, drop-in rooms for manuscript handling, meeting the reference specialists and a chance to network within our little group; second, a back-stage look at some of the manuscript materials available; and lastly a “lavs and lockers” tour of the library, which showed us where the various facilities and reading rooms were, as well as pointing out some of the interesting features of the library, such as the King’s Library of George III, the unmissable centrepiece of the library which holds such items as a first edition Chaucer.
The best part of the day for me was undoubtedly the manuscript viewing portion. We were taken backstage through to the staff workspace, where two rooms had been set up with display examples of the collection. Archivists of the various collections on offer were present to discuss the materials in front of us, as well as to answer any other general questions we had regarding the archives. The notebooks and handwritten scrips of Michael Palin and Monty Python, Joan Littlewoods’ Theatre Workshop manuscripts, original woodcuts from Alice in Wonderland and copies of the Australian radical feminist art journal, Lip, were just some of the items on display. By serendipity, I met the curator of both the Virago and Callil archives; I was able to discuss my research with her, and ask questions I still had about the copyright on the collection and who to contact at Virago for permissions. She was also incredibly helpful in informing me about the differences between the types of material available in the Virago business archive and Carmen Callil’s personal archive and discussing the problems of paleontology (reading handwriting) in the 20th Century.
Another archivist I spoke to was able to give me really valuable insight into some rich materials the Virago collection holds, suggesting that Virago’s relationship with the interwar writers they republished was a compelling angle to take based on her knowledge of the collection holdings. Specifically, she pointed me to a letter Rebecca West sent to Virago which thanked them for rescuing her work from a “conspiracy of silence” and to Sylvia Townsend Warner as a strong repository in the collection and with links to societies with research overlaps. I was immediately inspired by this idea: I had recently been enjoying Shari Benstock’s Women of the Left Bank and as a consequence was very interested in the interwar women writers’ contributions to modernism and literary production. I also knew this would fall squarely in my supervisory team’s wheelhouse, and we could collectively have insightful contributions if I were to take my research in this direction. It just goes to show that talking to the archivists and reference teams is really beneficial. It is their job, after all. This session facilitated me in overcoming the shyness of talking about my research with specialists.
At the end of the event, I took an opportunity to visit the museum area of the library “Treasures of the British Library”, which include the writing desk that it is believed Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice on, manuscripts of the Bronte sisters’ work, Suffrage Protest pamphlets, and notebooks of Virginia Woolf’s (to name a very few). The museum also happened to have an Angela Carter spotlight exhibition on; Carter ‘A life in writing’ exhibited various drafts of her novels and short stories which she copy-edited, as well as notes and unpublished works from across her career. Practically tearing my nose away from the glass, I reminded myself that tomorrow I could, in fact, order these materials straight to my reading room and inspect them without a plane of glass in front and from closer than a meter away.
Tuesday-Friday: The Archive Process
My tour guide from Monday informed me that a queue forms in the morning before opening times, and so to get the best desk it pays to be early. Early I was. After this first day, I realised that the seats won’t disappear into smoke if you’re not immediately at the door as it opens, and you don’t really need to be there half an hour before opening (which is 9.30am) if you want a bit more of a lie-in! I hurried to the cloakroom and back up the stairs to the second-floor Manuscripts Room, eager to get cracking. In preparation for my first full day of archive work, I pre-ordered four files which included articles written by the editorial team at Virago, meetings minutes and agendas and printed promotional materials. Collecting my first file, I was shown where to sit by the reference desk: the room is divided into different tables depending on the format of the material you are looking at and whether or not you are allowed to photograph it. As I was inspecting 20th Century manuscripts, photography was prohibited without copyright permissions. If you’re planning on a research trip to any material like this, it might be worth looking into getting such permissions. Otherwise, like me, you might be relying on your ability to take extensive notes. Permission comes from the creator of the materials, so it is also likely that you will have to seek permits from multiple authors.
I began with what would turn out to be the slimmest of the I would look at across the week, perhaps lulling me into a false sense of security as to the volume of the files I would be looking at. In a couple of hours, I had made comprehensive notes on every manuscript in the file. Although it didn’t take too long to complete this task, I quickly learned that as the files get larger the number of materials that can be realistically catalogued assiduously diminishes. In hindsight, the materials in this file were not all necessary for me to have recorded comprehensively. Nevertheless, I know that I will not have to go back to the file now as I have enough materials from it that I can reliably call upon. This is the only file I looked at that I can say this about (which shows you how much material can be in these files and how much I needed to get through).
Of all the days I spent in the library, I found this one the most draining. Possibly this was a result of having the most energy and thus working myself too hard. It could also be due to working with a new form of material and feeling my way through the physical process of researching archival manuscripts. As a new endeavor, I absolutely made some rookie mistakes and most of these occurred on this first day. Leaving the library, I felt as if I had done an incredible amount of work in terms of time spent in the reading room and my concentration levels and still I was not sure if I had come away with enough. Not because of how hard I had worked, but because of my task management. I definitely spent too much time prioritising things that could have been done at home (like correcting typos or filling in the information in my research log boxes that I didn’t need the manuscript in front of me to complete) and cataloguing materials that would be less useful to me as I came home because they were closer to the top of the file, but I underestimated how long it would take and am a chronic perfectionist to my detriment sometimes.
With knowledge of all the judgments I made the previous day that hadn’t quite worked in mind, I took on the next day. I started to work smarter from Wednesday and this affected my flow as I continued with my week. The files that I looked through also helped, I started looking through manuscripts that turned out to have more immediate use to my research as it stands and aligned more closely to my personal interests. I started to think about my conversation with the archivist a couple of days before and requested the Rebecca West file she spoke of, as well as others I knew to align with the interwar angle that I was exploring. I also started thinking of extending this angle even further back to the Victorian writers series that Virago added as a branch of the VMCs. Thinking about the potential examination of the Virago Modern Classic series as a genealogy that goes back to their republications of Victorian women writers, I started to ask: can I start to construct a chronological timeline of women writers who Virago is publishing and writing back to as becoming their “foremothers”?
Across my 4 days of archive work, I got through… 14 files. A far sight away from my 40 maximum. I catalogued everything feasible, including the numerical values of what they held and the types of materials present in them. It was impossible to write log notes for every individual manuscript I saw, so I tried to make comprehensive notes on the most noteworthy of these materials which could be used in my research from home. I will go back to these files on future trips when it becomes necessary to revisit them. Because of the sheer size of the archive and the incomplete nature of the files (in terms of dates it represents), my initial research idea of creating a chronological social network analysis across the years was revealed to be a near impossibility. I recognized that my research scope and methodology were going to have to shrink drastically and pivot slightly. While the trip was initially meant to be a scoping trip, my direction gained specificity across the week as I became more familiar with the processes of the work and the real-time discoveries that I was making. Remember, it is ok for your research goals to change slightly, and embracing flexibility is the best mindset you can have when it comes to archive work. You never know what you will find in an archive that lets you see things from a new perspective!
My Discoveries:
Now, if you’ve stuck around with me this far (thank you!) it’s time for me to get a bit nerdy about some of the manuscripts I got to see on my trip. If you’re curious about knowing some of the things you can find in the Virago archive, keep reading!
I never imagined that I would find the minutes and agendas of meetings that have happened previously and that I was not present for, in any way interesting. But here we are. This file proved to me that anything can become interesting when it is your research passion. As my research proposal centres on the backdoor decisions behind what and who gets published, looking at minutes gave me a glimpse of who was in the room and called upon to make these choices as well as what decisions need to be made to run a publishing house (disclaimer: I might be researching them, but I’ve never worked for one). I also noticed that there were information sheets on prospective titles with information on who they would sell best to, what opportunities for publicity the titles had etc. Most of these sheets for front-list fiction titles and VMCs stated that the market for the book was “all those who enjoy good fiction”, or some variation of this sentiment. Virago Modern Classics are first and foremost good quality and enjoyable fiction, and therein lies their literary and commercial value. What I found particularly interesting is that they note who “introduced” the book to Virago, whether that be literary agents, authors, or personal friends.
I discovered a lot of letters from people in the wider book industry or members of the general population recommending titles for Virago to publish across many different files, some of which were taken up by Virago and some being politely declined. Usually, this was cited to the suggester as a result of the title’s “non commerciality”. The line Virago were constantly treading between their feminist praxis and marketplace achievements is demonstrated in these letters as they can be seen to be figuring out which books by/about women will make them money. This was particularly the case in the materials relating to Victorian VMC writers, women who were writing in an era “pre-feminism” and are therefore more contentious to publish into a feminsit brand.
Another file that elucidated the behind-scenes decisions of Virago was the publicity materials printed by Virago in the 80s and 90s that I saw. The authors chosen as publicity representatives were of most interest to me when it came to this file: who do Virago consider to be their lead titles and will, therefore, bring the most sales and reception off the back of publicity?
The author/editor papers I issued a file from were Rebecca West, Angela Carter, Christina Stead, Antonia White, and Shari Benstock. These authors I chose particularly from around 450 others, as not only are they either from or writing of the inter-war period (except for Carter), West, Stead and White were three women who featured very early on in the Virago Modern Classics series. Two modes of inquiry would open by my inspecting of them: the aforementioned inter-war angle, and the early conceptions of the Virago Modern Classics. Virago’s interactions with the literary estates and lawyers of these authors illuminated the processes that Virago had to undergo in order to bring authors into republication (as well as providing a candid view of what they thought about this fact). These files also contained letters submitted to other publishers putting in bids for author’s works, which turned out to be particularly lucrative repositories of material. Virago were proving why they deserved to be the ones to publish a particular book. In defending their eligibility and proficiency in the competition of gaining publishing rights, they reveal the self-constructed identity of Virago from its editorial position. Another thing that struck me as valuable intelligence, was the messages between the Virago editors and external authors enquiring about the composing of paratextual materials, such as introductions. It started to have me questioning: who is Virago bringing into communication with the VMC network, and how does this assist in making classics out of forgotten authors’ books?
I picked Carter’s file to investigate largely because she is my favourite writer of all time and her deep-rooted alliance with Virago was entrenched by a close friendship she shared with Carmen Callil, its founder. Carter brought several authors and texts to light for Virago, and she would submit titles for them for the remainder of her life, working on collections for them on her deathbed. It was from my MA dissertation on Carter that I learned of this connection, and this in turn informed my thesis project direction right from the beginning. I couldn’t not take the opportunity when it presented itself! Having the privilege to have in front of me and (carefully) hold the letters of Angela Carter has got to be up there with one of the highlights of my life so far. I can’t even pretend this to be hyperbole. Nothing beats the tangible feeling of the materials you’ve spent so long reading about from other people’s research in your own hands. Nothing beats the excitement of knowing that a person you admire has held these pages you have in front of you or that you might make discoveries from them that nobody else has. There is a synergetic connection you have to these materials that is unmatched. By far, this is the most compelling argument for taking on archive research. The Carter file I chose held communications between Carter and Callil which navigated the professional relationships of editor/author within the framework of what was evidently an intimate and dearly held friendship. Interwoven with personal life updates about living postpartum and moving into her new house in Clapham, Carter provides updates on, very late, drafts of books she has written for Virago, such as The Sadiean Woman, and discusses her reading activities with Callil which she encourages Virago to consider for publication.
My last (tangential) research-related activity was an excursion to 107 The Chase, Angela Carter’s house, the home she made for herself in the last 16 years of her life. How could I not visit after spending the week poring over her letters which mention it? I proceeded to talk my friend’s ear off about her over a coffee and pastry overlooking the common. Finally, I came home, feeling an incredible sense of achievement, satisfaction, and pride for my work over the week!
I would finally like to take a moment to thank the M4C again for not only giving me the money for the trip, but also for believing in my research enough to provide me with a living wage, and to the British Library for being so accommodating and for hosting such informative events that helped put me at ease enough to work with your manuscripts. I feel truly lucky to call this my job, and this trip reinforced such gratification!
Getting Started with the British Library Talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGI2oXl_hzM&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=TheBritishLibrary
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