This collection of David Malouf contains corrected manuscript and typescript drafts of Bicycle and Other Poems, Johnno, An Imaginary Life, Child's Play, Eustace, The Prowler, Fly Away Peter, Harland's Half Acre, Antipodes : Stories, 12 Edmonstone Street, The Great World, Remembering Babylon, The Conversations at Curlow Creek, Every Move You Make, and Ransom.

There are draft typescripts and related documents for Opera Libretti by David Malouf (both published and unpublished): Voss : Opera in Two Acts After the Novel by Patrick White, Invocation to Earth, Remembering Babylon, 'The Aspern Papers', 'You can't think of everything', 'A Winter's Tale', The Fox and the Magpie. In addition there are two versions of 10,000 Miles Away, written by David Malouf for theatre.

This collection has over 1700 letters written to David Malouf from an extensive number of correspondents: Glenda Adams, Luciana Arrighi, Murray Bail, Bruce Beaver, John Bell, Bruce Beresford, Michael Berkeley, John Blight, Michael Brennan, David Brooks, Bille Brown, Felicity Bryan, Carmen Callil, Ian Callinan, Felix Calvino, Nancy Cato, Clem Christesen [writing to Judith Green, later Rodriguez], John Clanchy, Alison Clark, Dymphna Clark, Manning Clark, John Coetzee, Adele Cohen, Matthew Condon, Jim Davidson, Robyn Davidson, Bruce Dawe, Robert Dessaix, Rosemary Dobson, Espie Dods, Eve Duncan, Don Dunstan, Geoffrey Dutton, Nin Dutton, Christopher Edwards, Nick Enright, Michele Field, Helen Garner, Marea Gazzard, Clem Gorman, Lisa Gorton, Kate Grenville, Elizabeth Harrower, Kenneth J Harvey, Dennis Haskell, Ihab Hassan, Shirley Hazzard (Shirley and Francis Steegmuller), Janette Turner Hospital, Brian Howard, Barry Humphries, Ivor Indyk, Elizabeth Jolley, Gail Jones, Nicholas Jose (Nick Jose), Beate Josephi and Andrew Taylor, Nancy Keesing, Thomas Keneally, John Kinsella, Manoly Lascaris, David Leavitt, Gerard Lee, Geoffrey Lehmann, Kathy Lette, Alan Lightman, Stephen McClymont, Mark McKenna, Robert Macklin, Tony Maniaty, David Marr, Mandy Martin, Gillian Mears, Drusilla Modjeska, Frank Moorhouse, Mal Morgan, Les Murray, Philip Neilson, Cees Nooteboom, Mark O’Connor, Carlo Olivieri, Margaret Olley, Michael Ondaatje, Tony Page, Peter Porter, Pixie Pratt [Pixie O’Harris], Judith Rodriguez, David Rowbotham, Ethel Rowbotham, Lilian Roxon, John Ralston Saul, Jaya Savige, Scripsi (Michael Heyward and Peter Craven], Penelope Seidler, Tom Shapcott, Lidija Simkus-Pocius (Lidija Simkute), Ian Sinnamon, Norah Smallwood, Jeffrey Smart, Christina Stead, Lurline Stuart, John Tranter, James Tulip (Jim Tulip), UQP [Frank W Thompson, Roger McDonald, Craig Munro], Christopher Wallace-Crabbe (Chris Wallace-Crabbe), Robin Wallace-Crabbe, Jacki Weaver, Peter Weir, Gough Whitlam, Phyllis Webb, Patrick White, and many others.

The papers are comprised of four diaries (1940-1943; 1950, 1953), two bound typescripts of short story collections (ca. 1944 and ca. 1947), three scrapbooks (1944-1946) and one printed publication (1945).
The first two diaries cover the period between 1940 and 1944, including his work at Broken Hill South Ltd. and his war service in Australia and New Guinea. The other two diaries are travel diaries from 1950 and 1953.
The two bound typescripts contain largely unpublished short stories, with the second typescript mainly being a redrafting of the first.
The three scrapbooks, dating from 1944 to 1946, contain among other things correspondence (including rejection letters), wartime ephemera, cuttings (including several pages of cuttings relating to the ‘Ern Malley’ hoax), list of films and more.
Also contained in the papers is a bound volume containing Gordon’s own copies of three issues of Southerly, each of which features a story by him.

Thirty one letters, mostly incoming, and documents relating to Irmtraud Petersson’s PhD thesis on German images in Australian fiction. Correspondents include: Stephen Jeffries (Monash University), 3 letters; Dr John Fletcher (German Department, University of Sydney), 1 letter; Fred Dobberstein , 2 letters; Dirk Kruger (Letters are in German), 1 letter; Graeme Powell (Manuscripts Librarian, National Library of Australia), email trail; David Martin (13 letters, 2 postcards); Bruce Dawe (1 handwritten letter); and Walter Kaufmann.

Typescript, with handwritten additions. Working draft of the novel The ship on the coin ( 'The New Cleopatra'), published in 1972 by University of Queensland Press. Accompanied by a covering letter to the Fryer Librarian, dated 19 Feb 1973. Also included is the first sketch for a poem, later published in The Autobiography of a Gorgon.

This series comprises seven publications by or relating to Patrick White that have been annotated by John Beston while undertaking his research. The publications are:
Marr, D. (1992). Patrick White : a life. Alfred A. Knopf.
Morley, P. A. (1972). The mystery of unity : theme and technique in the novels of Patrick White. University of Queensland Press.
White, P. (1967). Four plays. Sun Books.
White, P. (1961). Riders in the chariot. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
White, P. (1956). The tree of man. Eyre and Spottiswoode.
White, P. (1970). The vivisector. Viking Press. [Inserted: Typescript and handwritten page with title 'Keneally interview']
White. P. (1957). Voss. Viking Press. [Covers have come away]

Biographical notes by Vera Dwyer and copy of letter to editor of Biographical Encyclopedia of the world.
Accompanied by letters to Vera Dwyer from editors of Biographical Encyclopedia of the World, Who's Important in Literature, Principal Women of the Empire and Who's Who in Australia, re inclusion of biography in their publications.