Autobiographical material

  • This material is held at
  • Reference
      GB 1840 KW/15
  • Dates of Creation
      c 1990s
  • Physical Description
      35 items

Scope and Content

File containing typescript drafts for pieces describing different episodes in Webb's life, presumably for her autobiography. Pieces are grouped together, and ordered approximately chronologically. The file contains two chronologies, one titled 'Kaye Webb - her life' and complete up to 1946, the second giving details up to 1979; one conventional biographical list; one medical history up to 1980; and one record of hospitalisations between 1980 and 1991.

The file contains sections titled 'Webb/Grandparents', with manuscript and typescript notes on Webb's family history and W.G. Webb's 'Penny Plain Tuppence Coloured Toy Theatres', including related correspondence and photocopies of illustrations and articles; 'My Mother' with multiple annotated typescript drafts; pieces titles 'Finishing School', 'Education and First Job', 'My first job' and 'My Early Jobs'; notes on working with Stefan Lorent on Lilliput; typescript drafts for a section on her friendships with Mervyn Peake and Dylan Thomas; a short piece titled 'Elizabethan Magazine'; 'Books with Ronald'; a piece on Allen Lane and Puffin; 'On Being a Children's Editor' and a list titled 'Posssible Portraits'. The file also includes one notebook with cover missing containing manuscript notes, mainly on being a children's book editor, and partial annotated text beginning 'Because of the work I do...' and marked 'K Personal' with related quotations from various children's writers. The file also contains a copy of an article entitled 'Working with Ardizzone', written by Judy Taylor Hough.