Patten - Papers of Brian Patten

This collection of working and personal papers dates from Patten's childhood to the time immediately before deposit in 2007. It gives much insight into his working practices and includes many manuscript, typescripts and notebooks containing various drafts of his poetry, plays, books for children and work for television and radio. There is a small but significant series of handmade typescript poetry booklets featuring Patten's early poetry, these are precursor's to his later published magazine Underdog. There is an important series of correspondence with letters from literary figures such as Allan Ginsberg, Philip Larkin, John Betjemen and Ted Hughes, amongst many others. Included with the collection is also a series of printed books is this collection for which see the printed book catalogue at SPEC Patten.