Receipts, invoices, correspondence relating to works of art and Sydney studio, from 1926 to 1979.

Birrell worked for the Commonwealth Works Department in Melbourne, Canberra and Darwin. There are 25 jobs represented in this subseries.

Album comprising 72 black and white photographs (sizes vary), 89 negatives (9.5 x 6 cm), 10 negatives (8 x 11 cm), 1 colour photograph and 18 slides (35 mm). Photographic prints, slides and negatives relate to Caroline Kelly's professional life in theatre and as an anthropologist.
Includes photographs of Margaret Mead, people at the Cherbourg community in Queensland, tobacco farming and a community gathering on the Atherton Tableland, and housing developments associated with Kelly's work for the New South Wales State Planning Authority.

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.

Maps of locations, correspondence and photographs of family properties including Lota House at Manly, Nindooinbah near Beaudesert and Bluff Downs near Charters Towers. Also, 'Here on a visit' manuscript written by Agnes Helena Wansey, giving an account of her childhood at Lota House and related correspondence.

Correspondence relating to research on the William Duckett-White family in Ireland and emigration to Australia.

Correspondence and documents relating to George Duckett-White, brother of William Duckett-White.

Materials belonging to Alistair Macdonald including correspondence, notes, drafts of articles, newspaper cuttings, ephemeral materials and a collection of medals.

This subseries consists of revised drafts, working notes, index cards, proofs and correspondence relating to the novel Bliss. This novel had several working titles: 'Heaven's door', 'A garden at the end of the world', 'On the edges of the empire', 'A wonderful fool' and 'Waiting for the Barbarians'. Bliss was published in Australia by University of Queensland Press in 1981. This was Peter Carey's first novel and won the Miles Franklin Award 1981 and New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 1982.

Oscar and Lucinda had the working titles 'Orphans', 'Broken Glass', and 'Holy Ghost'. Published in 1988 in Australia by University of Queensland Press. In the same year it won the Book Council Award (Australia), Booker Prize for Fiction (Australia) and Miles Franklin Award. Includes: Complete and incomplete drafts of Oscar and Lucinda and its working titles, including corrections, notes, correspondence, research material, publicity material, reviews, speech notes for the launch of Oscar and Lucinda. Oscar and Lucinda has won the Booker Prize 1988, Miles Franklin Award 1989, NBC Banjo Award 1989, Townsville Foundation for Australian Literary Studies Award 1988, and the Festival Award for Literature (South Australia) 1990.