Papers relating to the life and work of the novelist, poet and writer Naomi Mitchison. Includes personal correspondence, diaries, manuscripts, press cuttings, family papers and photographs.

Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, née Haldane, was born in Edinburgh in 1897. She was the youngest child of Louisa Kathleen Haldane, née Trotter, and John Scott Haldane (1860-1936). Her elder brother was the biologist J. B. S. 'Jack' Haldane (1892–1964).

Naomi attended the Dragon School from 1904–1911. She qualified for the University of Oxford in 1914 and entered the Society of Oxford Home Students. However, when the First World War broke out she chose to leave University and become a nurse. In 1915 she joined a Voluntary Aid Detachment at St Thomas's Hospital, London.

Through her brother, Jack, Naomi met Gilbert Richard 'Dick' Mitchison (1894-1970) in 1914 and they formed a romantic relationship which continued after Dick joined the army. They married in February 1916 in an Oxford registry office, having only a week together after the wedding before Dick's return to the front.

Naomi and Dick had seven children; Geoffrey (1918–1927), Denis (1919–2018), Murdoch (1922–2011), Lois (born 1926), Valentine (born 1928) Avrion (1928–2022) and Clemency (1940) who died shortly after birth. After several years of marriage, Naomi and Dick entered into an open marriage. In 1937 the family moved to Carradale House on the Kintyre peninsular, Scotland. This setting became very important to Naomi's politics and writings.

Mitchison was a prolific writer of more than 90 books across a multiple styles and genres, including historical, fantasy, science fiction, non-fiction, poetry, travel writing, childrens fiction and autobiography. She also wrote innumberable articles, reviews and essays for various publications. Her first novel 'The Conquered' was published in 1923 when she was twenty-six. Her best work is thought to be 'The Corn King and the Spring Queen' (1931) which explores themes of society and sexuality. Possibly her most controversial work, 'We Have Been Warned' (1935), was based on a journey to the Soviet Union in 1932 and explores themes including rape and abortion. The book was rejected by various publishers and ultimately censored.

Throughout her life, Naomi was politically engaged and active. She was a committed socialist and anti-facsist in the 1930s. She stood unsuccessfully as a Labour Party candidate for the Scottish Universities in 1935 and became increasingly attracted to Scottish Nationalism, writing on specifically Scottish issues. She served on the Highland Panel in 1947–1965 and the Highlands and Islands Development Consultative Council in 1966–1976. Naomi was also a vocal campaigner for women's rights, advocating birth control and tackling controversial feminist subjects in her writing.

Naomi travelled extetensively over her lifetime, including in Botswana, which she described as her 'spiritual home' after being adopted as a 'tribe mother' (Mmarona) to the BaKgatla people.

Her husband Dick, a Labour Member of Parliament for Kettering between 1945 and 1964, was given a life peerage in 1964 (created Baron Mitchison, of Carradale in the County of Argyllshire). This entiteld Naomi to call herself Lady Mitchison, but she never used the title and joked that any letters addressing her as such would be returned.

Naomi died at her home in Carradale on 11 January 1999 at the age of 101.