Before a book can be read, it needs to be written first. To write a great work of literature a writer needs to make sure that it ‘works’, that it somehow strikes a chord. A major element in this process is to ‘kill your darlings’ or the act of cutting. This form of creative undoing involves more than just authors cancelling words in their drafts. Writers are also readers; they take notes, some of which are processed in their own work, but many of which remain vestigial. Like vestigial organs, they have no direct function in the finished product, but they did have a function in the creative production process. The writer decided not to include them in their work. One would expect these ‘cuts’ to disappear in the waste-paper basket. But very often, writers do not throw them away and many of them are carefully preserved in libraries and archives. This peek behind the scenes, into authors’ workshops, reveals ideas that did not make it into our best-known novels, poems or plays, the evidence of which can only be recovered in manuscripts, held in archives and special collections.  

 
This talk is led by Dirk Van Hulle, Professor of Bibliography and Modern Book History at the University of Oxford, and has been arranged in collaboration with the Friends of the Bodleian Library, the Firsts London library partner for 2024.

All talks at Firsts London take place in the Talks Space on the top floor.