The Library’s manuscript collections include some by Cocteau, Flaubert, Gide, Giono and Sartre, as well as a large collection of letters written to Félix Gautier in connection with his editorial work on Baudelaire. An online catalogue of literary manuscripts including French ones is available to consult.
In addition we have collections of papers by eminent scholars such as the papers of Jean J. Seznec comprising biographical papers, BBC talks and Smith College lectures, 4 volumes of miscellaneous notes on French authors and painters, papers on Diderot, and material relating to the Messenger lectures, 1978, on the revival and metamorphose of the gods in nineteenth century art and literature. Jean Joseph Seznec (1905-83) was Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature, Oxford,1950-72, and a Fellow of All Souls College.
We also have some literary and critical works for example the plays of Charles Antoine Coypel transcribed from manuscripts at Valenciennes by, or for, Miss Irene Jamieson in the 1920s. Irene Jamieson (fl 1920-30) wrote a biography of the French painter and writer Charles-Antoine Coypel entitled Charles-Antoine Coypel premier peintre de Louis XV et auteur dramatique (1694-1752): sa vie et son oeuvre artistique et littraire d'aprs des documents indits suivies d'une de ses comdies indites (Paris, 1930).