The Ted Hughes Archive formed by his friend and manuscript advisor Roy Davids, including a large quantity of poetical manuscripts, including working drafts, presentation copies and occasional verses, drawings, and a series of autograph letters signed by Hughes; the archive comprising:

(i) Working drafts of poems, including: a set of verse jottings headed variously "Crow Hears Fate", "Elephant", "Dogo", "The Contender" [for Crow Wakes (1971)]; untitled typed and autograph verses ['Little Salmon Hymn'] opening: "Between the white hills of the Ocean...", in presentation folder for New Year 1986; heavily-worked untitled autograph verses opening: "Was it an animal was it a bird...", 2 pages ['The Lovepet']; untitled autograph verses opening: "Snow clinging/ falling...", 2 pages ['Snow']; untitled autograph draft, opening: " Mice are curious little creatures..." ['Mice Are Funny Little Creatures'; see also presentation manuscript below]; autograph fair copy of an early version of 'For the Christening of Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice of York' (the first three gifts here being a "Picture Book", "Elder Flute" and "Silver Cup", inscribed for Roy "to give, sell, swap or keep", Xmas 1988; three autograph drafts and a typescript of 'Thinking About Harry', opening: "What killed Harry...", 10 pages (with covering letter: "These lines about Harry Fainlight are not – as you'll see – a poem. There might be a poem of sorts in them. Which I doubt I shall execute", 30 October 1982 [the published tribute, 'To Be Harry', was to be developed from the final stanza of the present poem]); autograph draft, revised typescript and fair copy of 'Unfinished Mystery' (here titled "Personal" and "Epilogue"), opening "Enter Hamlet, stabbed, mad no longer..."; autograph draft of 'Prospero and Sycorax' (originally titled "Crows White Soul/ Soul of England/ Crow's Song about Prospero and Sycorax'"), opening: "[Sh]e Knows, like Ophelia..."; autograph "foul copy" headed "The Day of Sandringham Flower Show For Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother", opening: "Perfect gravel, a perfect sky...", inscribed "Roy's foul copy at Christmas 1996" [sent by Hughes to his friend the Queen Mother, a stanza of which is quoted by William Shawcross, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, 2009, p. 907; see Hughes, 'Christmas Card Rhymes, The Day of the Sandringham Flower Show', 22 December 1996, RA QEQM/ PRIV/ PAL/ Hughes; typescripts in Royal Library, RCIN 1165092-3]; autograph verse notes, written on the back of a paper bag, on Calvin, Cromwell, Milton, Charles I's execution, and the Serpent in a woman's body as the soul of England or "the natural wife of God" [untraced, but possibly bearing on Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being]; autograph draft of verses opening: "A dove snaps its twig-tether..." ['A Dove']; autograph draft of "Unknown Warrior", headed "VIII", here opening: "At curious eyes/ I was conscripted..."; carbon from the autograph, with added autograph revisions, for a superseded version of 'A Bedtime Story', opening: "Once upon a time/ There was a person..." (on the reverse of a typed carbon of the first stanza of 'Ballad from a Fairy Tale'); set of typescripts, described as "Mostly Unfinal Drafts", of fourteen poems, each signed, twelve of which were collected in Flowers and Insects, with autograph covering sheet headed "Nympholepticon"; autograph draft of Laureate verses celebrating Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson's wedding, opening: "Upon this day, this Royal day..." (inscribed to Davids on his birthday, 1986; with notes concerning publication and layout, some on Sotheby's paper)

(ii) Autograph presentation manuscripts of poems, including: autograph fair copy of 'Night Arrival of Sea-Trout', dated 21 March 1979 [marking the first visit by Davids to the Hugheses in Devon to inspect the Plath Papers]; autograph fair copy of three broadside poems, each headed by Hughes's autograph drawing in pencil of the creature celebrated, 'Mice are Funny Little Creatures', 'Weasels at Work' and 'Fly Inspects', on Japan paper, each inscribed at the foot in pencil as a gift for Christmas, 1982 [published as a trio with the drawings reproduced but to a different format by the poet's son Nicholas at the Morrigu Press the following year: a letter by Hughes to Davids, below, discusses price and publication]; autograph fair copy of "The Bricks", opening: "O who are we?...", inscribed for Roy "on his 7,856th birthday" [written in celebration of the Queen Mother's estate at Birkhall, Balmoral, where Hughes would be invited to fish]; autograph fair copy of "On the Reservations", 4 pages, plus typescript containing some autograph revisions, Christmas 1987; autograph fair copy of "The Rose" (inscribed with birthday wishes); autograph fair copy of "Envoy [to 'The Best Worker in Europe'] for Roy/ from the Hairy Salmon", opening: "Just like a Fox in a chicken coop..." (written on the reverse of a carbon of 'The Best Worker in Europe' and marked as "Roy's very own bedtime copy")

(iii) Autograph manuscripts of occasional verse, comprising: autograph draft and fair-copy of "For Roy, On His First Learning How to Cast" (opening: "First, cast/ Out your crooked past..."), the latter dated 2 January 1982; autograph presentation manuscript headed "For Roy's Fifftyest Birthday" [1 June 1992] ("When fifty comes the Century/ Panics like Everest, to see/ A solitary climber..."), on a presentation folded sheet with "From All Lovers of Salmon For Gudmundur Eiriksson on his retirement from the Presidency of NASCO" (opening: "Who'll define a Salmon?...") and 'That Morning' (slight drink-stain); illustrated autograph presentation draft of "An Ode/ For Roy's first Birthday in Freedom [from Sotheby's]/ June 1st, 1994", opening: "An egg washed up at Hove...", 7 pages (illustrated by Hughes with the head of Sekhmet, as per Sotheby's entrance, a pack of "dealers' dirty dogs" and an assemblage of authors as sold by Roy from his Pugin rostrum); heavily-worked autograph draft and fair copy of 'Consolation for Non-Participants' (a scabrous reflection of poets and their performance, opening "One was pink as a prawn his eyes/ China-blue..."), each 2 pages; autograph draft of a verse on Sotheby's and its Book Department, opening: "The books – modern & incunabula...", on the back of a carbon of 'Tern' (c.1986); autograph verses on Davids's [39th] birthday, opening: "Does the year give up its ghost with a groan?..."; autograph verses illustrated with a self portrait of the author smothered in paper, opening: "Sitting here/ Up to either ear/ In Shakespeare..."; autograph verses "For Roy", opening: "The Lesser-Bogland Porsche..."; a [birthday] card with autograph verses facing Carol Hughes's greetings, opening: "When Milton's cat walked on the wall..." (1983); autograph draft of verses on Davids as king of Sotheby's, opening: "King David had his Psalms..."; an autograph verse-letter in French, opening: "Pas seulement dans I'Afrique du sommeil..."; draft in an unidentified hand of a Hebrew translation of 'Remembering Teheran', photocopies of 'A Full House' [p. 731], inscribed by Hughes as "Roy's very own super-corrected copy" (7 September 1991); autograph verses on his absence, opening: "We came/ for tea..."; on part of the broadside Cows, opening: "There's this about cows..."; experiments on the Sotheby's Book Department word-processor ("ffirste commputrised poem by this honde"); autograph verses to Tina May Walton

(iv) Series of some 30 autograph letters signed, to Roy Davids, discussing, inter alia, his poetry ("...There wasn't a moment when I could talk about your poems – never quite certain what convolutions might light up in Felix's brain among other things, in spite of your assurance... Your night-time breathing is a disturbing poem. Everything depends – apart from the naked feeling of a naked event – on that tolling rhyme, which works well with real effect & finality. I found myself reading this poem at odd times to reconnect with the real painful thing you've pinned there. Lucid & accurate. Finely written... Memory I like best – and I really do like it. Odd thing – unresolved thing? – about your verse is the way you swing between very free impressionistic images – like the first line, like the 7/8th lines – and a formal direct plain style with not much image component but arresting or more assertive musicality...Your control has an odd kind of charm and distinction – reminds me occasionally of Laforgue via Eliot – and the irruptions of the other element sharpens everything about it, by contrast a tortuous combination, intensifying the precarious meanings of it. (Eliot's basic innovation – apart from his own perfect uniqueness & oddity – was a deliberate exploitation of those two components – the free & the controlled, the super-sane and the (with him) more or less mad. It's the secret of the power of Japanese – and of all interesting art, I think. The way you manage is it natural & necessary to you – seems so... Something real about your sensibility in those poems – convincing arithmetic of the complex of painful & erotic feelings..."), the state of his own writing career ("...I've felt somewhat cleared & productive since I 'confessed' that archive [Sylvia Plath Papers] to you. An OLD friend (?) – he's 75 – told me to ease off, there's already an awful lot of me to read (he's written 50 books & still won't stop). However – I'm weary of feeling like an athlete just out of plaster – so I shall keep going. (If enemies don't stop you, friends will). Who knows where we might get to if only we did the simple thing & kept going/ With pick & with drill/ Not hippety hop --/ Into the mountain/ Not over the top..."), the sale of the Plath Archive and preparation of its catalogue ("...when you spoke about 'the catalogue' needing ample embellishment of descriptive prose – you really stopped me dead. I'm not sure what I can add to the stuff I gave you in the inventory. What I suggest is: Felix & yourself make a draft of the sort of thing you want – in as much detail as if I too were dead & gone. Then I will resurrect, and you show me that draft – at which point no doubt I'll see all sorts of possibilities for juicy insertions & addenda..."), and the contemporary publication of the complete edition of her poems ("...as I go through the poems, I'm making a much fuller & more arcane description of each items – making each a separate unique object – like another painting by the master – which I suppose it is – rather than a preparatory detail-sketch for the one big opus...") as well as her journals ("...That early year squeeze got me into enough remorse – with this book of S.P.'s diaries, which has gone very sour. What a horrible mistake, to publish that..."); some of the later letters discussing the research into Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being ("...As you see, the only assumption I now make is that the sonnets are addressed to Wriothesley – anyway, whoever thinks otherwise is a foolish knave. Delete the letter about dear Emilia. Not necessary – though I'm sure Rowse is right..."), much of which was typed up at Sotheby's ("...The typing is an ordeal. Stenographers we need. I try to make each point seem quite clear, & interesting. What I don't know is whether the overall tone is too something or other. The constant effort to be brief might mean – I fail to draw my reader in. Note any obscurity that sticks in your gullet, please. I'm collecting epigraphs, to encrust its brow. How am I to tell Alan [Hancox] I don't want to throw away August & September trying to reduce any of this to lecture-bite slices. As you see, to speak about any part of it, you have to explain the whole..."); other subjects covered include submissions to Sotheby auctions ("...I've written out the manuscript of an unpublished 'children's' book – at present waiting for illustrations by Leonard Baskin... The book's titled 'Under the North Star' – all about creatures in the frosty hairy North. What do you think the reserve should be? Gotham Book Mart occasionally sells single sheet holographs of mine for about £30... I suggest £500..."); other poets' archives ("...Zbigniew Herbert is coming over in October. Any chance of selling his MSS before then? To some exiled Pole? He wrote, asking..."); the state of the British literary scene ("...moving towards this little group in Mexico revives my sense – which used to be a lot stronger than it has been lately – of what a claustrophobic clockwork chamber English contemporary poetry is, low self-hypnotised it is. Decomposition of a defunct culture. A funeral..."); his portrait ("pghartreaght") by Barrie [Cooke]; fishing expeditions ("...So now we've found the spot, you'll have to come & went catch fish. Higher tides for a while now, & there's still lots of time for bass. They catch very big plaice there, too. Are you free this weekend?... For £1 you get about 3lb weight of sand-eels – which are more delicious than mackerel – so if we catch nowt we can still feast cheap... Collected S.P. printed – published in 2 weeks. Nightmare of the 'collected' prose still a nightmare..."), etc.

(v) Autograph sketches, notes and other material : a diverse range, including three autograph horoscopes cast by Hughes for Davids; a worked-up pencil sketch of "The Rough Beast Slouching Towards Bethlehem To Bite Roy In His Cradle"; a typed note with autograph additions, headed "To be written in to the agreement of sale of the Literary Archive of Sylvia Plath"; autograph draft for blurb on Sylvia Plath written on a photocopy of a valuation letter of 1981 to the Lilly Library ("...She is now established with Emily Dickinson as a major figure in American Literary Studies, and translated into the major languages is already acknowledged throughout the world as one of the great female poets of all time..."); pen-and-ink study by Leonard Baskin of a crow, parrot and sparrow, annotated by Hughes ("...This is the sparrow/ That marrit/ The Parrit – When their skullegg broke/ The sparrot-chick spoke/ A skeleton crowk..."); anonymous memorial drawing in pencil of Vasco Popa, inscribed for Roy, 1 January 1992; dinner menu for Hughes's 60th birthday, signed by the Hugheses, Heaneys, Spenders, Valerie Eliot, Craig Raine et al.; snapshots of Hughes (accompanied by droll captions), etc