Scope and arrangement
This is a synthetic collection consisting of manuscripts and typescripts, correspondence by and about the author, diaries for 1907 through 1913, legal and financial documents, portraits, and pictorial works. The manuscripts include a short story and essay by Wells, and memoranda from the literary agency A. P. Watt and Son relating to the author. The typescripts consist of stories, film scenarios, descriptive copy for a dust jacket, and essays. Also included are agreements between the author and his publishers. The diaries were kept by Sir Sidney Philip Perigal Waterlow recording conversations with the author and others. The correspondence, dating from 1892 to 1942, include letters from the author to William Maxwell Aitken, C. F. Cazenove of the Literary Agency of London, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Strickland Gibson, Violet Hunt, John Lane, Morley Roberts, T. Fisher Unwin, the literary agency A. P. Watt and Son, Leonard Woolf, and others. There are also letters relating to the author, dating from [1900] to 1952, exchanged between various correspondents including Benn (Ernest) Ltd., Doubleday, Page & Co., Field, Roscoe & Co., Lucienne Southgate, Amy Catherine Wells, Marjorie Wells, and others. There are letters to Wells from Edward J. Bing, J. M. Dent and Sons, Doubleday, Page & Co., George Gissing, William Heinemann, Ltd., Metheun & Co., Ltd., John Collings Squire, Hugh Walpole, and A. P. Watt and Son, dating from 1902 to 1931.
The H. G. Wells collection of papers are arranged in four series: