'A Winter’s Tale (The Round of Time). After William Shakespeare'. Three versions of draft for libretto, [ca. 30 leaves each], [David Malouf’s 2017 note: Commissioned by the English National Opera, 1988/9. Michael Berkeley set part of the text (Paulina) in a song-cycle. The commission fell through.] With two associated pieces of correspondence by Malouf and Berkeley

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.

Remembering Babylon, set mainly in a mid-nineteenth-century settlement in Queensland, is a compressed epic, centering on the theme of exile and the strange challenge posed by one who, like William Buckley, had lived with the Aborigines, becoming ‘a white black man.’ It was first published in 1993. This subseries consists of six folders of notes, handwritten drafts, three typescripts with many handwritten corrections and additions, publishers’ proofs with many corrections, and a re-typed transcript with corrections throughout.

'Jane or The Bride of Thornfield' (Jane Eyre), typescript, 18 leaves, a few emendations. [David Malouf’s 2017 note: First draft, 1996/8. Performed Cheltenham Festival. Toured London, Canberra, St Louis, USA.]. With associated letter by Malouf to Michael Berkeley. Accompanied by the published libretto, Jane Eyre, from cover 'A libretto by David Malouf for an opera by Michael Berkeley', 27 pages, published by Vintage in 2000.

'The year is 1827, and in a remote hut on the high plains of New South Wales, two strangers spend the night in talk. One, Carney, an illiterate Irishman, ex-convict and bushranger, is to be hanged at dawn. The other, Adair, also Irish, is an officer of the police who has been sent to supervise the hanging. As the night wears on, the two discover unexpected connections between their lives, and learn new truths. Outside the hut, Adair's troopers sit uneasily, reflecting on their own pasts and futures, waiting for the morning to come. With ironic humour and in prose of starkly evocative power, the novel moves between Australia and Ireland to explore questions of nature and justice, reason and un-reason. , the workings of fate, and the small measure of freedom a man may claim in the face of death.' Source: Publisher's blurb (Vintage reprint).
This sub-series contains handwritten and typescript drafts, with emendations.

Remembering Babylon : for tenor voice and piano, composed by Diana Blom ; text by David Malouf, 2 versions, one unpublished with holograph letter by Diana Blom, dated 8 Nov 2001; the other is the score published Wollongong, Wirrapang Pty Ltd, 2013, (31 pages); 21 x 30 cm, with note "Dear David, Finally published! Cheers Dinty".

The Fox and the Magpie. A divertissement for two voices and four instruments. By David Malouf. Music by Kurt Schwertsik, 24 pages, spiral bound.

This subseries consists of a copy of a letter from David Malouf to Yvonne Smith discussing the writing of An Imaginary Life, and extracts selected and typed by David Malouf from the diary he kept when writing An Imaginary Life. The letter and diary extracts show that the various pieces were written within a short time frame, commencing with the “poppy passage” on Sunday 24th October 1976 and with the rest following soon after.
Comprises: Photocopy of original letter from David Malouf to Yvonne Smith, 29 Nov 2001, 4 p., handwritten [original water-damaged]; Typed copy of letter from David Malouf to Yvonne Smith, 29 Nov 2001, 3 p.; Photocopy of diary extracts selected and typed by David Malouf from the diary he kept when writing An Imaginary Life, 21 Oct 1976 to 10 Nov 1976, 3 p., typescript [original water-damaged]; Re-typed version of the diary extracts, with explanatory material by Yvonne Smith, 4 p.

Comprises: The Long View. For male choir. Music by Noel Ancell. The Crab Feast. For piano and percussion. Music by Eve Duncan. An die Musik. For SATB choir. By Andrew Ford. The text is based on Malouf’s poem of the same name, poems by Gwen Harwood and Thomas Shapcott as well as folk poems from Malaysia, the Pueblo Indians and Finland.

Short stories, most of which appear in the short story collection Every Move You Make. The short stories that appeared in the publication are: The Valley of Lagoons, Every Move You Make, War Baby, Towards Midnight, Elsewhere, Mrs Porter and the Rock, and The Domestic Cantata. This sub-series contains two files of short story typescript drafts.