Future ideas, rejection letters and praise from Toni Morrison: British Library acquires novelist Andrea Levy's archive
Working drafts, intended future novels and early rejection letters are among the complete archive of writer Andrea Levy acquired by the British Library.
Best known for 2004 book Small Island and follow-up The Long Song, the award-winning novelist died of cancer last year. Her work reflects her own experiences as a daughter of Windrush generation migrants, and examines the history between Britain and the Caribbean.
A series of drafts of her published books, as well as working notes that show her detail in characterisation and plot are among the archive. It also contains the extensive research Levy conducted into the history of Jamaica and her own family background, including audio interviews with her own mother.
The British Library says that her notes contain a clue that makes an explicit connection between the characters of Small Island and The Long Song that readers might have missed.
An intended sixth novel, which planned to follow the marriage of a black woman and a white man, and an unproduced screenplay about the life of Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole, are among the acquisition.
Levy’s archive of correspondence has also been added to the collection, containing everything from early rejections to letters of support from fellow writers such as Toni Morrison and Joan Bakewell.
Levy’s husband Bill Mayblin said: “Late in her life it came as a surprise to Andrea that her carefully saved boxes of notes, letters and early drafts could become something as posh-sounding as an archive. But once convinced of it there was only one place she ever wanted that archive to go, and that was to the British Library.
“Not only had the Library greatly helped her research as a writer, but because much of her work examined British colonial history – a history full of omission and injustice – it seemed fitting, and somehow just, that her archive should finally find a home in a truly national institution.”
Items from the archive will be on display in the free permanent Treasures Gallery from the end of February. The full archive will be accessible for research late next year.
