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There are draft typescripts and related documents for Opera Libretti by David Malouf (both published and unpublished): Voss : Opera in Two Acts After the Novel by Patrick White, Invocation to Earth, Remembering Babylon, 'The Aspern Papers', 'You can't think of everything', 'A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.

In The Great World Malouf enters familiar Australian territory with a story of war experience and mateship. The narrative contrasts the personalities of two men and their experiences in the Second World War, Digger Keen, the archetypal, taciturn Australian, gifted with a photographic memory, and Vic Curran, whose ambition and drive take him from poverty to the top of the business world. The Great World was first published in 1990 and won the Miles Franklin Award in 1991, the Adelaide Festival Award and two international awards, the 1991 Commonwealth Prize for fiction and the Prix Femina Etranger in France for the best foreign novel. This subseries consists of a draft early version of the novel, originally titled ‘The Memorialists’, the first handwritten draft of the novel, and a typescript draft in five parts with many handwritten corrections and additions.

Typescript draft of Part V of The Great World, mostly on green paper, handwritten emendations, white-out corrections, and cut and paste inserts (attached with sticky tape). There are 3 sections in this file. Original folder has been retained. On the cover it has page and word counts and page numbers for 3 sections.

Typescript, 241 leaves, on white paper, handwritten emendations in blue and black pen and pencil, and cut and paste inserts (attached with sticky tape). Cover note by Malouf 'Final copy before proof'. Accompanied by 4 leaves with handwritten note 'Rejected passage, from The Great World'. Photocopy, 1 leaf, of inside cover and title page of the published work.

This file is comprised of handwritten notes and draft pages of Remembering Babylon on pages of various sizes, a small exercise book with a handwritten draft, and 106 typescript leaves. There is handwritten emendations, white-out corrections, and cut and paste inserts (attached with sticky tape).

Printed on continuous computer paper, this typescript draft of Remembering Babylon has handwritten emendations in blue and black biro, blue and red ink and pencil, white-out corrections, separated at paper perferations at the end of each chapter, with some perferations pasted together with sticky tape.

Draft typescript, 202 numbered leaves, 4 inserted leaves, handwritten emendations in blue biro, and several pages of typescript drafts of new paragraphs inserted after page 138 and others

A group of eight early draft typescripts of stories (two copies of one title), some still untitled, with handwritten emendations, white-out corrections, cut and paste typescript inserts (attached with sticky tape). All but one published in Every move you make.

1. Untitled (The Valley of Lagoons, [38 leaves], 36 hand numbered leaves.
2. Untitled (Every Move You Make), 16 leaves.
3. Untitled (War Baby), [28 leaves], 26 hand numbered leaves.
4. Towards Midnight, 9 leaves.
5. Untitled (Elsewhere), 11 unnumbered leaves.
6. Mrs Porter and the Rock, 24 leaves, 2 versions, including first draft on green paper.
7. The Domestic Cantata, 9 unnumbered leaves.
8. 'Closer' - unpublished, 8 unnumbered leaves.

Manuscript, version 1, A5 size paper, [ca. 100 leaves], mostly on the back of other typescripts and draft (?) letters

Typescript, version 3 (typed by David Malouf), with handwritten emendations, white-out corrections, cut and paste typescript inserts (attached with sticky tape), and handwritten inserts.