The British Library

On 22nd March 2010 the British Library acquired Mervyn Peake's entire written archive. Among the many boxes of papers, folders, notebooks, and manuscripts were his hand-written poems spanning the years, letters written to publishers and family members, actors other writers and friends. The original very fragile notebooks contained the drafts for several plays and numerous outline sketches for other ideas.

A comprehensive online facility will be open to the public to view in due course, as will be the ability to view all the original Alice drawings which the Library has also acquired. It is hoped that an exhibition will be held in the foyer of the impressive building during 2011, the centenary of Mervyn Peake's birth, when not only will the sixty plus illustration to Lewis Carroll's classic be on show, but also the writer's original manuscript.