Poetry of the Thirties. One of our strongest collections in literature of the 1920s and 1930s is the library of Archibald Campbell (1902-1989). Educated at Edinburgh and Oxford, Campbell was a leading scholar of the law, with an interlude as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park. He was Regius Professor of Public Law in the University of Edinburgh, 1945-1972. The library was presented in 1984, and reflects Campbell’s literary connections formed at Oxford. He was a contemporary and friend of Stephen Spender, Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden and his library contains much English literature and secondary material of the 1930s with large holdings of Auden, Spender, Pound, Forster and Norman Douglas. There is also a smaller group of early legal and classical texts and miscellaneous other literary material. Professor Campbell subsequently bequeathed to the Library his copy of Auden's 'Poems', 1928, a famous rarity. The book collection is mainly catalogued online. Shelfmarks: SC 5076-5339, JA 3936-51 SD 4421-4459, SD 4652-4677. The manuscript collection (E89.60, E2008.04) includes nine metres of material, some unsorted, including correspondence and three photograph albums. Highlights are letters from Auden, Spender, and Humphrey Carpenter. The manuscripts are not catalogued. This article was published on 2024-08-21
