Some countries have a concentrated focus in respect of locations of literary manuscripts (we have noted the key role of the National Library of Uruguay, for example). Other countries have a very wide range of collecting institutions (and we have noted the striking example of literary archives in Brazil).
In the UK there is a particularly wide variety of collecting institutions (perhaps as many as 400), and the following examples are chosen to provide literary visitors to the UK, or British literary travellers, with some suggestions for finding interesting collections in interesting (and sometimes unexpected) places:
* Alan Ayckbourn Archive, Borthwick Institute for Archives, York.
* Phyllis Bentley Archive, Halifax Central Library.
* Literary papers of Sheena Blackhall, University of Aberdeen Library.
* Wilfrid Scawen Blunt papers, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester.
* George Mackay Brown papers, Orkney Library and Archives, Kirkwall (also in the National Library of Scotland and Edinburgh University Library).
* Basil Bunting Poetry Archive, University of Durham Library.
* Papers of Samuel Butler (author of Erewhon) in the Archives of St John’s College Cambridge and Shrewsbury School.
* Charles Causley Collection, Exeter University Library.
* Ronald Duncan papers, also in Exeter University Library, but some in the Britten-Pears Library, Aldeburgh.
* Papers of Menna Gallie, Gwyneth Lewis and Menna Elfyn, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
* Sarah Grand papers, Bath Record Office.
* James Shaw Grant papers, Tasglann Nan Eilean Star, Stornoway, Lewis.
* Joyce Grenfell papers, University of Bristol Theatre Archive.
* Ivor Gurney Collection, Gloucestershire Archives.
* H. Rider Haggard Collection, Norfolk Record Office, Norwich.
* Thomas Hardy manuscripts in Dorset County Museum, Dorchester.
* Susan Hill Collection, Eton College Library.
* Winifred Holtby manuscripts in Bridlington Library and Hull History Centre.
* Peter A. Jamieson papers, Shetland Archives, Lerwick.
* Doris Lessing papers, University of East Anglia Library, Norwich.
* Papers of Norman MacCaig in Edinburgh University Library, the University of Stirling Library and the National Library of Scotland.
* Dennis Potter Archive, Dean Heritage Centre, in the Forest of Dean.
* J. B. Priestley Archive, University of Bradford Library.
* Philip Pullman Collection, Seven Stories the Centre for Children’s Books, Newcastle upon Tyne.
* Jeremy Sandford Archive, Herefordshire Archive and Record Centre.
* Derek Tangye papers, the Morrab Library, Penzance.
* R. S. Thomas Archive, Bangor University Library.
* Papers of Francis Thompson (author of The hound of heaven) in the Harris Library, Preston.
* Hugh Walpole Collections in Keswick Museum and the Archives of the King’s School, Canterbury.
* Papers of P. G. Wodehouse, Dulwich College Archives.
* Papers of Virginia Woolf, The Keep, Brighton.
More information about all of these collections is given in the online Location Register of English Literary Manuscripts and Letters.