The archive contains the complete literary papers of Christopher Rush to date (2010), relating to all his creative writing, published and unpublished. This includes manuscript notebooks and drafts, typescripts, and literary correspondence relating to `Peace Comes Dropping Slow` (1983), `A Resurrection of a Kind` (1984), `A Twelvemonth and a Day` (1985), `Into the Ebb` (1989), `Last Lesson of the Afternoon: a satire` (1994), `To Travel Hopefully: journal of a death not foretold` (2005), `Hellfire and Herring: a childhood remembered` (2007), `Will` (2007), `Aunt Epp’s Guide for Life` (2009) and other works. The writer`s personal papers, including diaries and commonplace books, correspondence and a photograph album form a substantial part of the collection.

The archive of Christopher Rush is remarkable both in terms of its completeness and its currency. His many books, including ‘A Twelvemonth and a Day’ and ‘Last Lesson of the Afternoon’ are represented from the first drafts in numerous longhand notebooks, through typescript drafts to final corrected proofs. Perhaps one of the most interesting items in this section of the collection is his Cevennes journal, compiled when, a year after the sudden death of his first wife in 1993, and attempting to come to terms with this loss, Rush made his first ever trip abroad to follow – with a donkey – the route taken through the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1878. This journey became `To Travel Hopefully`, which was published to wide acclaim in 2005. The literary correspondence in the archive charts Rush’s relationship with various publishers over 30 years, and is greatly enriched by his correspondence with fellow writers, particularly George Mackay Brown. The personal papers include a run of 10 commonplace books, and a series of diaries dating from 1977 to the point at which he sells his archive to NLS in 2010.