Identity area
Reference code
Watson/4/1
Unique identifier
Title
Date(s)
- 1959 - 1976 (Creation)
Level of description
Subseries
Extent and medium
Paper.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
George Grimes Watson was born in Brisbane, Australia, on 13 October 1927. He was educated at Brisbane Boys' College and the University of Queensland, where he graduated in 1948 with a degree in English. He secured a scholarship for a second degree and received an English degree from Trinity College, Oxford in 1950; he worked for the European Commission as an interpreter before becoming a lecturer in English at Cambridge in 1959 and a Fellow of St John's College in 1961. He remained at St John's until his death on 2 August 2013.
Watson edited 'The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature'. As well as producing wide-ranging literary and cultural criticism, he was involved in leftist politics, campaigning as a Liberal candidate in 1959 and 1979 and working as Editor for the Unservile State Group; his political writing often critiques socialism from a liberal perspective.
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
This subseries contains preparatory documents relating to 'The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature'. Items will ultimately be catalogued individually; for now, a list follows.
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PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION
‘List of Contributors and Revisers’ for the 1959 CBEL Supplement
‘Proposals Submitted by Mr George Watson’ (16 February 1963)
‘Proposals submitted by Professor Phillip Harth’ (23 April 1963)
‘Some Comments by F.W. Bateson’ (28 May 1963)
Peter Meade, ‘Notes on Proposed Revision of the CBEL’ (undated)
‘Reflections stimulated by the existing reports…’ (5 June 1963)
‘Points made for the attention of the General Editor’ (8 June 1963)
‘Reviews of the Bateson edition’ (focusing on the Index) (undated)
‘New CBEL Index Volume’ (undated)
Suggestions about the index, compiled by Peter Burbidge (4 May 1971)
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MEMORANDA OF AGREEMENT
Between George Watson and Cambridge University Press (23 September 1964)
Between JP Pickles (compiler of the Index) and Cambridge University Press (1971)
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GUIDELINES
Abbreviations
‘New CBEL: Periodical Articles / October 1966’
Notes for Contributors draft with MS corrections
Seven copies of Notes for Contributors
‘Minor Poetry’ sample pages
‘The Novel’ annotated sample page
‘Notes for the Printer’
‘Volume 5: Index – Draft headnote’
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LETTERS TO ALL CONTRIBUTORS FROM GEORGE WATSON
20 July 1967
May 1969
June 1971
8 May 1972
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Dust jacket