Harold Pinter Archive Blog

Archives of living writers

This week has seen my return from holiday and the continuation of the cataloguing of Harold Pinter’s scrapbook series. One of the ‘political’ scrapbooks is the most recent item in the collection, containing an article dated 9 January 2008 – only 5 days before I started this project! I picked it up from Pinter’s office a few weeks ago. This is one of the strange things about cataloguing the papers of a living writer – the project can’t really be completed whilst the person is still a living writer. As the collection keeps growing, so does the catalogue. This means that the catalogue has had to be arranged in such a way that items can be slotted into existing series one year/ten years/fifty years down the line, if necessary. For the Harold Pinter archive, this has been achieved by a very exciting numbering system. There are also a few more data protection issues to be aware of when dealing with living individuals. However, there are advantages to institutions acquiring the archives of people whilst they’re still alive - it gives them the opportunity to advise the archive creator on the types of records that should be kept long-term and how to store them. This is especially important for ‘born digital’ records (e.g. emails), which may be lost (i.e. become unreadable) if technology moves on and systems are not in place to migrate them to the new technology. Also, from a cataloguer’s point of view, it is handy to be able to refer queries to the actual creator of the archive.

Conservation concerns

The cataloguing of Harold Pinter’s scrapbooks has continued this week. Whilst cataloguing, in addition to noting dates and languages, I have been listing any conservation needs of the volumes. The scrapbooks pose a particular problem in terms of conservation. Many of the earlier volumes are literally bursting at the seams with material. Much of the material is made up of newspaper cuttings, which by their nature are only meant to survive for a day or two. There is also the issue of modern paper types - faxes, photocopies, ink-jet printouts - which are a relatively unknown quantity, but are fairly low quality paper and are not expected to survive longterm. Some items are stuck to the scrapbook pages with adhesive tape or glue, which has already started to degrade and stain. Despite these problems, it is not an option to remove the items from the scrapbooks and re-house them in archival standard folders or boxes as the integrity of the item as a whole would be lost. As was mentioned in last week's post, Harold Pinter himself had a hand in compiling the scrapbooks and the way they are put together is as much of interest as the information they contain. The conservation solution is likely to involve the deacidification of the newspaper cuttings and the creation of boxes to house each scrapbook and protect it from dirt, dust and further damage to the bindings. The climate controlled environment in the stores at The British Library will also prevent further deterioration of some of the more unstable paper types.

I am on holiday next week so cataloguing and blogging will recommence the following week.

Pinter's Scrapbooks

I have started the cataloguing of Harold Pinter’s UK and international production scrapbooks this week. The scrapbooks include newspaper cuttings of reviews, copies of articles, production programmes, posters and some photographs. They provide a comprehensive record of how Pinter’s plays, films and directorial offerings were critically received. I was assured by Mr Pinter himself that he had personally compiled the earliest scrapbooks, and the handwriting in the first three volumes seems to confirm this. I can just imagine him at his desk meticulously cutting and pasting (the old fashioned way) into the books.

The scrapbooks are in very good order and do not require any physical rearrangement, which is nice. There are also indexes to most of the volumes that describe what is held in each, with dates. So what have I actually been doing you wonder? Well, I’ve been working through each scrapbook double-checking dates and noting the different languages present. The range of languages I’ve been identifying is testament to the far reach of Pinter’s work, including not only our nearest European neighbours (French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch) but also the Scandinavian countries, Turkish, Japanese, Hebrew and Icelandic to name a few!

The scrapbooks series also includes volumes relating to the arts world in general, poetry, political activities and personal matters, which will all be tackled next week.

Nobel Prize Correspondence

This week I have been continuing the cataloguing of the correspondence relating to the announcement of Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize. Pinter was inundated with congratulatory letters, emails, faxes, telegrams and cards from all corners of the globe.

Senders range from the statesman -
Kofi Annan ‘Throughout your career, you have had the courage to be honest and outspoken on some of the most important and difficult issues facing humanity.’
Tony Blair ‘It is a great honour for you personally and, by extension, a great boon to this country that we should have produced another Nobel Laureate in writing…’

To the fellow writer -
Christopher Hampton ‘…quite right too and not before time…’
Kazuo Ishiguro ‘I can’t think of anyone on the planet more deserving.’
Ian McEwan ‘It is an awesome body of work you have created, and you have given us such pleasures.’

To the friend -
Mick Goldstein ‘What a victory – winner of the literature stakes!’

To the man on the street -
‘Congratulations! With much appreciation from a fan and scholar…’

A few invoked a passion for cricket to convey how they were feeling -
Jeffrey Archer ‘I thought nothing would surpass winning the Ashes, I was wrong.’
Tim Rice ‘Immaculate strokes throughout a long innings and still a long way from the stumps…’

And many can be summed up by the words so eloquently used by Patrick Marber - ‘About bloody time’.