This is now the world's largest collection of Beckett resources. It contains over 600 manuscript, typescript and photocopied typescript items of original Beckett material, including manuscript drafts, annotated copies and corrected copies. There are also manuscript notebooks containing a wide variety of material, chiefly dating from the 1930s. Correspondence includes around 70 letters written by Beckett to his lover Pamela Mitchell in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and around 170 items from the correspondence between Beckett and the scholar Ruby Cohn, starting in the 1950s and continuing until the end of Beckett's life. There are 'stage files' relating to over 680 productions of Beckett plays, each containing material such as programmes, publicity material, reviews etc. Printed material includes over 1000 books, including both critical works and editions of Beckett's work in more than 20 languages. There are also over 500 offprints and photocopied articles on Beckett, around 170 periodical titles and over 40 dissertations. The collection contains artwork, including framed works by Avigdor Arikha, Geer van Velde and Henri Hayden, presented to the collection by Beckett himself; designs for Beckett productions; and artists' illustrated books by Avigdor Arikha, H.M. Erhardt, Max Ernst, Sorel Etrog, Jasper Johns and William Hayter. Other material includes over 2500 news cuttings relating to Beckett, around 50 posters from Beckett productions, over 500 photographs, a number of audiovisual recordings, and a remarkable variety of Beckett ephemera.
