John Maynard Smith Archive (1948-2004) (Add MS 86569-86840) Table of Contents
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British Library: Western Manuscripts John Maynard Smith Archive (1948-2004) (Add MS 86569-86840) Table of Contents John Maynard Smith Archive (1948–2004) Key Details........................................................................................................................................ 1 Arrangement..................................................................................................................................... 2 Provenance........................................................................................................................................ 2 Add MS 86569–86574 Reprints and copies of articles and book chapters by John Maynard Smith (1952–2003)...................................................................................................................................... 3 Add MS 86575–86596 Correspondence files, F–Z (1975–1991).............................................................. 5 Add MS 86597–86830 Subject files (1948–2003).................................................................................. 18 Add MS 86831–86835 Notebooks and plant lists (1973–2003)............................................................... 223 Add MS 86836–86837 Lecture notes ([c 1990–c 1999])........................................................................ 226 Add MS 86838–86839 Artefacts and books (1983–2001)....................................................................... 227 Add MS 86840 Annotations and manuscripts with offprints received by John Maynard Smith (1952?–2003).................................................................................................................................... 231 Key Details Collection Area British Library: Western Manuscripts Reference Add MS 86569-86840 Creation Date 1948-2004 Extent and Format 7 series (400 files approximately). 2 hard drives. Approximately 100 3.25 inch floppy disks. Access Conditions Available for research unless otherwise stated Conditions of Use Computer files may not be copied. Title John Maynard Smith Archive (1948-2004) Physical Characteristics Mainly paper. Includes computer files stored on hard-drives and floppy disks. Cataloguing of these electronic files is in progress. Scope and Content The archive documents over fifty years of Maynard Smith's work in evolutionary biology from 1948 to 2004, with an emphasis on the 1970s-1990s. It contains correspondence, working papers, computer printouts, draft manuscripts and reprints of scientific and other publications, artefacts, digital files (in the process of being catalogued), lecture notes, and a small number of personal, administrative records. Overall the original order of his working papers is retained and much of this material is arranged by subject (Add MS 86597-86830). Here can be found Maynard Smith's original notes, correspondence and computer modelled data alongside papers he read and wrote relating to the main subjects of his working life including reproductive strategies and the evolution of sex, human language, the application of game theory to evolution, the evolution of viruses and bacteria, and antibiotic resistance. These are complemented by files on a wide variety of other problems studied during his career, for example animal flight, signalling and mitochondrial DNA. Alongside these are arranged subject files on more popular topics concerning sociobiology, anniversaries in the history of evolution, gay evolution, and creationism. Perhaps of lesser significance to the intellectual history of evolutionary biology but still important documents of the working life of a scientist are correspondence and papers relating to reviews, referees reports for scientific journals and monographs, advice to research students, testimonials, and the organisation of lectures, scientific visits and exchanges (Add MS 86575-86596). A full or near-complete set of offprints of publications by Maynard Smith is retained (Add MS 86549-86574). There is also significant manuscript material amounting to over 600 items relating to publications and drafts received by Maynard Smith from other scientists (Add MS 86840), showing his engagement with the research of others outside his own projects. Manuscript items in this series include annotations to published papers, draft manuscripts of scientific papers, correspondence, and handwritten notes. Further highlights scattered throughout the archive include correspondence and documents relating to Maynard Smith's teacher and mentor, the population geneticist John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892-1964), and correspondence and collaborations with contemporary scientists working in evolutionary biology, for example William Donald Hamilton (1936-2000) and George R. Price (1922-1975). Other scientists represented in the archive include, for example, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Mootoo Kimura, Marion J. Lamb, Richard Lewontin, Lynn Margulius and Edward O. Wilson. Additions to this archive in 2006 include a notebook of chess moves (Add MS 86832) suggestive of Maynard Smith's interests in games and their analysis and lists of plants (Add MS 86833-86835) from natural history travels and observations showing his enduring love of the pastime. Further material included in the archive are: accounts and fees for lectures 1973-2003 (Add MS 86831), which may prove a useful source for reconstituting aspects of Maynard Smith’s diary; correspondence with publishers about some of his 13 monographs (two jointly authored); correspondence with the New York Review of Books and philosophers of science, reflecting his wider intellectual interests; and correspondence with and payments from the BBC relating to radio broadcasts and TV appearances, emphasising Maynard Smith’s prominence in public science. While the digital files remain uncatalogued a pilot project is underway to make a selection of these files available in the Manuscripts Reading Room at the British Library. As these become available details will be posted on the British Library Manuscripts webpages and over time descriptions of computer media and files will be added to this catalogue. Apart from material relating to Haldane and items on leisure pursuits mentioned above, the archive contains very little material of a personal or biographical nature, for example relating to Maynard Smith's family, early life or education. Also absent from the archive is content relating to politics (Maynard Smith was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain from around 1938-1956) although some of his more popular talks, Page 1 2020-01-21 writings and correspondence on science and society perhaps give a sense of his political views in later life. The overwhelming emphasis of the archive on Maynard Smith's professional, scientific life is probably a consequence of the major portion originating from his workplace during the period of his established career at the University of Sussex after 1964. Arrangement Most of the collection was transferred from Maynard Smith's office at the University of Sussex where it was stored in filing cabinets containing hanging files and, within many of these, folders, and sub-folders. The collection remains largely in original order and original hanging file and folder titles allocated by Maynard Smith have generally been retained to preserve his organisation of the material and his terminology for the topics and projects he worked on. The major exception is the 'manuscript items held with offprints received' series (Add MS 86840) from which manuscript material has been separated from the large number of unannotated offprints and copies of published papers in Maynard Smith's original series. Relationships between manuscripts and published items originally held in this series are being documented in the process of cataloguing and a bibliography of the published material in the Maynard Smith archive is being prepared. In addition, minor tidying up within original files has been undertaken by the curator assisted by cataloguers and volunteers to reinstate chronological or alphabetical/chronological order where this has become somewhat disarranged through filing practice. Some recent items (for example, those in use by Maynard Smith) were stored loose on shelves and desks and these have been integrated with similar material. A later accrual of notebooks and plant lists originates from Maynard Smith's home at Lewes, Sussex. The archive is arranged in the following order: • Publications by John Maynard Smith (Add MS 86569-86574) • Correspondence (Add MS 86575-86596) • Subject files (Add MS 86597-86830) • Notebooks (Add MS 86831-86835) • Lecture notes (Add MS 86836-86837) • Artefacts (Add MS 86838-86839) • Annotations and manuscripts with offprints received (Add MS 86840). As material in different formats that Maynard Smith brought together have with the exception of the series of offprints received been kept together, it is important to note that the correspondence is to be found among subject files (Add MS 86597-86830), manuscript items held with offprints received (Add MS 86840) and correspondence (Add MS 86575-86596) series, in that order of importance. It is likely that the most interesting correspondence for many purposes is among the subject files, whereas Maynard Smith's designated correspondence files deal with more routine matters. Provenance Legal Status Not Public Record(s) Immediate Source of Most of the collection comprising archival material held in the office of Acquisition John Maynard Smith at the University of Sussex was donated by