Acquisition:	Purchases and Gifts, 2008-2013 (R16575, 12-12-004-G, 13-02-004-P)
	Processed by:	Amy E. Armstrong, 2010; Daniela Lozano, 2015 Born digital materials processed, arranged, and described by Chance Adams and Brenna Edwards, 2015-2022.

Repository:

Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

	The English writer Jim Crace was born on March 1, 1946, at Brocket Hall in Herfordshire to Charles and Edith "Jane" Crace. Crace was raised on the boundary between city and country in Enfield, North London in a nurturing and well-anchored home. His working-class father, a curious, self-educated, politically-minded atheist, had an immense influence on Crace, as did attending the prestigious Enfield Grammar School. As Crace did not attend his local school, he was on a boundary once again between two distinct classes, and this maneuvering shaped Crace’s world view and informed his later writing. Throughout his teenage years and early adulthood, Crace sympathized with liberal causes and became politically active in the Enfield Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, for which he edited leaflets. After a period of travel and introspection, Crace attended Birmingham College of Commerce (now the University of Central England in Birmingham) and was awarded an external Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of London in 1968. While at university, Crace edited and contributed to the Birmingham Sun, the newspaper of the Guild of Students, University of Aston.
	Immediately after graduating from university, Crace joined the Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) and was sent to Khartoum, Sudan, where he assisted writing and producing educational programs for Sudanese Educational Television. Crace traveled through Africa and briefly taught at a village school called Kgosi Kgari Sechele Secondary School in Molepolole, Botswana. Crace’s exposure to other cultures while living abroad in Africa and later while traveling through North and Central America also inspired his later writings.
	Upon returning to Britain in 1970, Crace taught briefly and then worked as a freelance writer, initially for the British Broadcasting Corporation. There he wrote radio scripts for the BBC Schools’ educational broadcasts, many of which incorporated themes related to African culture and history. Crace soon broadened the scope of his writing and turned to short fiction. In 1974, the literary journal The New Review published "Annie, California Plates," his first of three short stories to appear in the journal. Crace soon had stories published in Cosmopolitan, Socialist Challenge, the London Review of Books, and Quarto, leading to book offers from agents and publishers. During this time, Crace met a teacher named Pamela Turton whom he married on January 3, 1975. The couple settled in Birmingham, England, and later had two children, Thomas and Lauren. Crace continued writing dramatic and comedic scripts for the radio and even co-wrote teleplays for a possible television series. Although the television scripts were unproduced, two of his radio plays, The Bird Has Flown (1976) and A Coat of Many Colours (1979), aired on BBC 4.
	Despite offers from publishers, publication in The New Review led Crace to a freelance career in journalism, and he contributed investigative and feature articles to The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph Magazine, and The Radio Times. He also reviewed books and wrote literary criticism for Quarto, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Sunday Times. Even though Crace was committed to journalism, he grew increasingly frustrated with editors’ tight control over his articles. He accepted advances from the publishers Heinemann (U.K.) and Harper & Row (U.S.) that allowed him to leave journalism and focus on writing his first novel.
	The transition from fact-reporting journalism to full-time fiction writing was difficult for Crace, and he initially had trouble focusing his ideas. While providing a rather unfavorable review of Gabriel García Márquez’s novel In Evil Hour, Crace became aware of the power and effectiveness of magic realism. Writing about imagined worlds in realistic--though often fictitious--terms came easily for Crace, and he found his voice and developed his distinct style. When Crace was 40, his first book, Continent (1986), a collection of seven loosely-related stories about an imagined continent, was published and received immediate critical praise, winning the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the David Higham Prize for Fiction, the Guardian Fiction Prize, and a year later, the Premio Antico Fattore.
	Crace is regarded as one of Britain’s most original voices through his use of invented language, depiction of city and landscape, and exploration of individual behavior in ever-changing complex societies. Crace is interested in invention, as evidenced by his novel’s convincing but fictitious epigraphs. Though his novels are each very unique, they retain the hallmarks of Crace’s distinct style. As a result, the books have garnered critical success, and Crace has received numerous awards and honors, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ E. M. Forster Prize. His fifth novel, Quarantine (1997), was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Whitbread Fiction Prize; his next novel, Being Dead (1999), won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Fiction and Book Review Best Books selection, and was short-listed for the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award. In 2000, Crace’s alma mater, the University of Central England in Birmingham, presented him with an Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University, and in 2002, the University of Birmingham awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Letters. Many of Crace’s works have been adapted to film and theatrical productions and even inspired musical pieces.
	Between 1981 and 1983, Crace was Midlands Arts Centre Writer-in-Residence, where he concluded his tenure by founding and directing the Birmingham Festival of Readers and Writers. Crace has often mentored aspiring writers through writer-in-residence and university programs and was the inaugural recipient of the James A. Michener Center for Writers Distinguished Writer-in-Residence award at The University of Texas at Austin. Crace frequently contributes essays and articles for newspapers and magazines and was invited by Médecins Sans Frontières to contribute an investigative report for their series "Authors in the Front Line," in which writers travel and bring much-needed attention to the world’s most troubled regions.
	The natural world, which features prominently in Crace’s writing, is not only an influence, but an avocation. He is a serious gardener, amateur ornithologist, and landscape painter. Indeed, his family’s annual trips to the Isles of Scilly off England’s southwestern coast have inspired his watercolors and three of his novels. Crace has stated that after finishing his books All That Follows (2010) and a "Cracean" autobiography provisionally titled Archipelago, he intends to devote more time to painting.

	Scope and Contents
		The Jim Crace Papers, 1954-2013, consist of manuscript drafts, scripts, advance proofs, notes, notebooks, research material, correspondence, clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, serial publications, books, sound recordings, moving images, watercolors, juvenilia, posters, and ephemera from the English novelist Jim Crace. The personal and professional papers span Crace’s writing career and document his diverse range of creative output which includes novels, essays, investigative journalism articles, short stories, dramatic and educational radio scripts, television scripts, watercolor paintings, and some poetry. The papers are organized into six series: I. Literary Activities, II. Journalism, III. Correspondence, IV. Career and Personal Papers, V. Works by Others, and VI. Magazines and Newspapers.
		Series I. Literary Activities includes products associated with Crace’s writing and is arranged into three subseries: A. Novels, B. Short Works, and C. Radio Scripts. The Novels subseries is arranged in alphabetical order by title, and within each title the material generally follows the chronological order of literary production, from research notes to publication drafts. When applicable, related material such as dust jackets, reviews, publicity material, correspondence, or adaptations follow the drafts. The Short Works subseries contain two subgroupings with titles arranged alphabetically: Short Stories/Poems and Essays /Introductions/Articles. The Radio Scripts subseries contains both dramatic radio plays and school broadcasts and is arranged alphabetically by title. The School broadcasts are further arranged within each title by episode number.
		Series II. Journalism pertains to articles and reviews written by Crace between 1970 and 1988, prior to his career as a full-time novelist. He wrote for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine, The Radio Times, Sunday Times Magazine, and reviewed books for the Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, New Statesman, and Quarto. This series includes article typescripts, original clippings and photocopies of published articles and book reviews, notes and notebooks, research material, royalty statements, and scrapbooks containing original and photocopies of articles and reviews.
		Series III. Correspondence contains personal, professional, and fan letters, including printed electronic mail (email). The arrangement closely follows Crace’s own categories. Personal correspondence consists primarily of letters with family and close friends, the bulk of which are letters Crace wrote to his parents while living in Africa and traveling abroad during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It also includes letters from and to friends he associated with during that period. The general correspondence is in alphabetical order by correspondent’s name or entity. It includes letters from authors, publishers, agents, friends, readers, and other associates. Publishers’ correspondence consists primarily of email exchanged between 2005 and 2008 and is arranged by date. Letters and email regarding film rights for Crace’s novels Being Dead and The Pesthouse are also contained in this series, as is readers' correspondence received largely from unknown fans. These two groupings are also arranged by date.
		Series IV. Career and Personal Papers contains Crace’s address books, daily appointment calendars, childhood and school papers, family papers, financial documents, ephemera collected while in Africa and as a journalist, honors, clippings and transcripts of interviews and articles about Crace, invitations, journals, juvenilia and early works, photographs, brochures for public appearances and book festivals, lecture notes and drafts, Public Lending Right statements, publisher catalogs, material related to his residencies, material in support of Salman Rushdie, material related to his Voluntary Services Overseas work in Sudan, and his watercolors. The materials are in alphabetical order by name or topic.
		Series V. Works by Others contains literary criticism of Crace’s work, in the form of journal articles and academic papers, works in which Crace is mentioned, and a piece of music inspired by The Gift of Stones.
		Series VI. Magazines and Newspapers is in alphabetical order by title with the bulk consisting of periodicals containing Crace’s published works, interviews or articles about Crace, and in rare instances, issues he collected or retained for research related to particular writings.
		Items identified as Scrapbooks in the collection were Nyrex albums containing plastic sleeves with Crace’s published articles, clippings, letters, awards, and some photographs. Because some albums were damaged and the general chemical composition of these albums creates an unfavorable archival environment for the material, the contents were removed from the albums and placed in the same sequence within folders.
		The Jim Crace Papers include a small amount of material that was exposed to moisture and suffered minor mold damage. The Conservation Department has vacuum treated this material, but mold may still be present. These items are identified in the collection; for health reasons, patrons may consider wearing gloves and a dust/mist respirator while handling this material.
		Additional material from Crace, received by the Ransom Center in 2012 and 2013, has been integrated into the existing Container List. It consists of numerous drafts and material related to Crace’s novels All That Follows (2010) and Harvest (2013); a small amount of material related to Being Dead (1999), Continent (1986), The Gift of Stones (1988), The Pesthouse (2005), and Quarantine (1997); and drafts for his unpublished work Archipelago. The addition also includes correspondence, career and personal material, a small amount of works by others, and magazines and newspapers.
	Series Descriptions
		Series I. Literary Activities, 1971-2013, undated (36.5 boxes)
		Series I. Literary Activities includes materials associated with Crace’s writing and is arranged into three subseries: A. Novels, B. Short Works, and C. Radio Scripts. Subseries A. Novels is arranged in alphabetical order by title and includes notes, notebooks, research material, drafts in various stages, proofs, promotional and marketing material, correspondence, clippings and reviews, and scrapbooks. Published works include: Continent (1986), The Gift of Stones (1988), Arcadia (1992), Signals of Distress (1994), Quarantine (1997), Being Dead (1999), The Devil’s Larder (2001), The Pesthouse (2005), Six (2003) [published as Genesis (2003) in the United States], All That Follows (2010), and Harvest (2013). Notes and drafts of Crace’s abandoned "Cracean" autobiography, Archipelago, are also present. Though not all produced, Signals of Distress, Quarantine, The Gift of Stones, and The Devil’s Larder have been adapted into theatrical productions and performed by Grid Iron Theatre Company, The Flying Machine, or Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Being Dead was adapted into an unproduced screenplay and The Devil’s Larder was also produced as a performance jazz piece.
		Material for each novel is arranged in order of literary production, beginning with notes, notebooks, research material, draft fragments, and concluding with final drafts and proofs. In his writing, Crace uses invented language, imagined locales or fictionalized renderings of historical moments and places; therefore, there is little research material accompanying his novels. For Quarantine, he visited and photographed the Judean desert in order to invent his version of the desert. Crace does, however, make voluminous notes and crosses through them as he either rejects or uses the material. Within notes for Signals of Distress is a piece of wood Crace picked up and used to write a note on while on the Isles of Scilly.
		Of significant interest within the Novels subseries is a blank pre-publication volume of The Pesthouse, entitled Useless America. In order to complete the publishing contract, Crace was asked to supply a temporary title. He borrowed a line from the novel and provided "This Used to be America," but inexplicably, the title was understood to be "Useless America." Curiously, though the book was not yet published, an online bookseller began selling copies of Useless America, complete with several lengthy reviews. Continuing the lark, Crace’s publisher printed seventy-five limited edition blank paperback copies of the novel to be used for a publicity contest.
		Also notable within the notes and draft fragments for Six/Genesis are email exchanges with Alicja Lesniak, the namesake for a character within the novel. As part of a charity auction for the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture, Lesniak purchased the right to have a character named after her in a Crace novel. See also the Invitations folder in the Personal and Career Series for the charity auction program.
		Within The Devil’s Larder material is a novella entitled The Slow Digestions of Night. It was one of twelve volumes that formed a boxed set entitled A Collection of Stories, published in 1995 in celebration of Penguin’s 60th anniversary. Crace’s small volume contains five excerpts which were later included as chapters in The Devil’s Larder. The complete boxed set is contained within the Ransom Center’s book collection.
		Subseries B. Short Works contains Crace’s short fiction, including Short Stories and Poems, and non-fiction material, including Essays, Introductions, and Articles. Both sub-groupings are in alphabetical order by title and include typescript drafts, proofs, original clippings and photocopies of the published material, emails, and correspondence. Shorter pieces are housed together in folders by letter span, while larger files are housed in folders by title. Significant material in this segment includes drafts of Crace’s first published stories "Annie, California Plates,""Helter Skelter, Hang Sorrow, Care’ll Kill a Cat," and "Cross-Country," as well as papers relating to "Pycletius." Crace began Continent with an epigraph attributed to the fictitious historical figure "Pycletius." Further blurring the line between fact and fiction, the editors of the Oxford Companion to English Literature intentionally included an invented Pycletius entry written by Crace in their 2000 volume.
		The Essays, Introductions, and Articles segment includes non-fiction material written between 1987 and 2013 after Crace published his first book. Articles written while Crace worked as a freelance journalist will be found in Series II. Journalism. Of importance is Crace’s report "Waiting for a Miracle," published in The Sunday Times Magazine. As part of its "Authors in the Front Line" program, Médecins Sans Frontières asked Crace to pick a troubled region that interested him and report on the problems confronting the area and the work of Médecins Sans Frontières there. Crace traveled to Cambodia in 2005, and this series includes his research material, photographs, notes, correspondence, and numerous drafts.
		Subseries C. Radio Scripts is comprised of the dramatic radio plays and educational broadcasts Crace wrote for the BBC. As part of its education mandate, the BBC produced national and regional programming that aired in schools. These series and broadcasts often had published lessons that accompanied the program, such as Crace’s An African Casebook. The series is arranged alphabetically by title beginning with the dramatic and comedic scripts, followed by the school broadcasts which are arranged by title or topic and within each title by episode number.
		Series II. Journalism, 1973-1988, undated (2.5 boxes)
		Series II. Journalism pertains to articles and reviews written by Crace between 1970 and 1988, prior to establishing himself as a full-time novelist. He wrote for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine, The Radio Times, Sunday Times Magazine, and reviewed books for the Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, New Statesman, and Quarto. This series includes article typescripts, clippings and photocopies of published articles and book reviews, notes and notebooks, research material, royalty statements, and scrapbooks containing original and photocopies of articles and reviews.
		This series begins with article typescripts, many undated and with publication details unknown. When possible, the publication title is provided in parentheses. The final published versions of articles and book reviews in the form of original and/or photocopied clippings are housed in folders following the typescripts and with the removed contents of nine scrapbook albums within the series. See also Series VI. Magazines and Newspapers for entire issues of publications. Also included in this series are notes, four folders of reporter’s notebooks, and research material and ephemera associated with specific articles and works in progress. Of particular interest within the research files are newspapers commemorating VE-Day and D-Day containing facsimiles dated 1944-1945, several eighteenth and nineteenth century newspaper facsimiles, and three April Fool’s Day spoof editions of newspapers for the fictitious countries of San Seriffe and Bodoni.
		Series III. Correspondence, 1968-2013, undated (4.5 boxes)
		The Correspondence series consists largely of incoming letters and printouts of electronic mail (email). This series is divided into five groups: Personal, General, Publishers, Film Rights, and Readers. A large amount of the correspondence is comprised of email exchanges between Crace and other writers, publishers, and friends. In some instances, the exchanges might be incomplete and provide only one party’s communication.
		The Personal correspondence is primarily letters with family and close friends, the bulk of which are letters Crace wrote to his parents while living in Africa and traveling abroad during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It also includes letters from and to friends he associated with during that period. These letters document Crace’s life abroad in a politically tumultuous region and his desire for adventure. Also contained in this section are letters from Crace’s mother after his father’s death and an early letter from Crace’s wife, Pamela. General correspondence forms the largest segment of the series and is in alphabetical order by correspondent’s name or entity. It includes letters and email from authors, publishers, agents, friends, readers, and other associates. Some of the authors represented include: Frederick Busch, John Fowles, James "Jim" Hynes, David Lodge, Julie Myerson, Salman Rushdie, Tom Stoppard, and Rose Tremain. Crace’s correspondence with publishers consists primarily of emails between 2005 and 2008 and contains, in particular, Crace’s final exchanges with Penguin before switching publishers. Letters from magazine and other publishers are also found in the General correspondence. Book-specific correspondence is sometimes filed with that work. Letters from producers and script writers regarding film rights to Being Dead and The Pesthouse are located in this series. Readers’ correspondence is mostly from unknown fans; however, fan mail is also filed in General correspondence. Correspondent names are listed in the Index of Correspondents located at the end of this finding aid; however, correspondence included in the 2012 and 2013 additions has not been indexed.
		Series IV. Career and Personal, 1954-2013, undated (10.5 boxes)
		Series IV. contains Crace’s address books, daily appointment calendars, childhood and school papers, family papers, financial documents, ephemera collected while in Africa and as a journalist, honors, clippings and transcripts of interviews and articles about Crace, invitations, journals, juvenilia and early works, photographs, brochures advertising public appearances and book festivals, speech notes and drafts, Public Lending Right statements, publisher catalogs, material related to his residencies, material in support of Salman Rushdie, material related to his work in Sudan, and his watercolors. The materials are in alphabetical order by name or topic.
		The segment of material regarding Crace’s Childhood, School, and University days is particularly enlightening. Highlights from this period are grade reports from Worcester Junior School and Enfield Grammar School and an issue of Sixth Sense, an unofficial version of Enfield Grammar School’s magazine. Of significant interest are three hand-drawn maps completed by Crace when he was about nine or ten years of age. Crace enjoyed reading books about imagined islands, studying atlases, and, perhaps foreshadowing his later ability to create imaginary places with words, spent hours drawing these detailed maps of invented places with names often borrowed from teachers and books. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament leaflets collected by Crace and an issue of the Enfield Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s publication edited by Crace called "Against the Bomb" are in this series. Crace is pictured in the cover photograph; he is the second boy from the right, facing backwards. While at university Crace edited, contributed stories, and co-authored a comic-strip for the Birmingham Sun. There is one folder of clippings from the Birmingham Sun in this series and thirteen complete issues of the newspaper from 1967 in Series VI. Magazines and Newspapers.
		Crace’s first fiction writing, the earliest dated 1965, with many undated, is contained in juvenilia and early writings. Included are television scripts co-authored with Mic Yates, short fiction, ideas and fragments, notebooks, and the few poems written by Crace. Notes and composite drafts of an abandoned novel entitled A Shortened Pyramid are also present in this series. Because the order of pages for this draft cannot be discerned, they have been kept in their original incorrect order.
		The Identification and Travel Documents section contains several student and youth hostel identification cards, most affixed with a photograph of a young Crace. There is also a large amount of travel tickets, boarding passes and baggage claim tickets dating from the late 1960s to 2013, in addition to Crace’s Sudanese and international driver’s licenses. Five of Crace’s passports, dating back to 1959, are also included here.
		Honors include awards, programs, letters, and clippings Crace has received throughout his literary career. Material related to awards for a particular work may also be filed under that work and/or in material removed from the scrapbook notebooks.
		Photographs in the collection are black-and-white and color prints and include publicity shots, contact sheets, and snapshots. The photographs are largely related to Crace’s writing career and are of Crace in various poses in his garden and on city streets, receiving awards and honorary degrees, and at book readings. Photos of particular interest include Crace and author Salman Rushdie, who appeared together at a 1983 book signing, and several snapshots of Crace with American book collector Rolland Comstock. Comstock became a collector of Crace’s books when he bought all 1,000 remaining copies of Crace’s Continent. See also general correspondence and articles about Crace folders for additional material related to Comstock. Among the photographers whose photos are included are Abbas, Basso Cannarsa, Giovanni Giovannetti, Sophie Bassouls, and Mark Gerson.
		Series V. Works by Others, 1994-2007 (0.5 box)
		This series contains literary criticism in the form of articles by Susan Balée and several academic papers and theses authored by Miyahara Kazunari, John Constable, Hideaki Aoyama, and other students. As part of the Contemporary British Novelists series published by Manchester University Press, Dr. Philip Tew wrote Jim Crace, a biography and critical analysis of Crace’s novels. Order forms, emails, and dust jackets related to Dr. Tew’s work are present in this segment. Also in the series are two reports about Birmingham in which Crace is quoted or mentioned and a musical composition entitled "The Gift of Stones" by Roger Bruce.
		Series VI. Magazines and Newspapers, 1933-2010 (bulk 1967-2010)(4 boxes)
		Series VI. Magazines and Newspapers is arranged in alphabetical order by title with the bulk consisting of periodicals containing Crace’s published works, interviews or articles about Crace, and, in rare instances, issues Crace collected or retained for research related to particular writings.

	The Tom Stoppard Papers at the Ransom Center contain additional material related to Jim Crace.
	The Jim Crace Collection at the Ransom Center contains a final draft typescript and first and third pass master proofs for All That Follows (2010).

Jim Crace’s library includes approximately 143 volumes of Crace’s novels in different editions and languages, as well as books containing contributions by Crace. These have been separated from the collection and are housed in the Ransom Center’s Book Collection. Two political buttons, one award plaque, and one certificate tube have been separated from the collection and are housed in the Ransom Center’s Personal Effects Collection. A collection of audio cassette tapes and CDs containing radio interviews, readings, and audio books have been separated from the collection and are housed in the Ransom Center’s Sound Recordings Collection. Three VHS tapes, one micro VHS tape, and one DVD have been separated from the collection and are housed in the Ransom Center’s Moving Image Collection. One 3.5-inch floppy disk containing drafts of The Pesthouse has been separated from the collection and is housed in the Ransom Center’s Electronic Records Collection.

Items received in 2012 and 2013 that were transferred to other departments within the Ransom Center include 181 books and 7 audio books transferred to the Ransom Center Library; 1 DVD, and 2 CDs containing photographs, and 2 flash drives containing all the files from Crace’s laptop and desktop computers transferred to the Electronic Records Collections; 1 DVD and 1 cassette tape containing BBC 4 recordings transferred to the Sound Recordings Collection; and ephemera from a gala for The Devil’s Larder in Turin, Italy transferred to the Personal Effects Collection.

	People
		Crace, Jim
	Organizations
		British Broadcasting Corporation
	Subjects
		Africa--Travel and description
		Authors, English--20th century
		English fiction--20th century
		Journalism--England--20th century
	Document Types
		Address books
		Calendars
		Clippings
		Correspondence
		Electronic documents
		Juvenilia
		Manuscripts
		Photographs
		Poems
		Publications
		Scrapbooks
		Scripts
		Serials (publications)
		Sound recordings
		Watercolors

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