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Michael Palin donates more than 50 notebooks to the British Library

In the UK, writer and Monty Python co-creator Michael Palin has donated more than 50 notebooks of original sketches and ideas for Monty Python to the British Library, reports the Guardian.

The collection, which comprises work from 1965-1987, will be available for viewing by the public. The notebooks include ideas for characters, draft episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Palin’s first job offer from the BBC, and personal diaries.

The British Library’s head of contemporary archives and manuscripts Rachel Foss said the library ‘was delighted to have the extensive archive as part of the collection’, and that it complemented other recent donations by British writers such as Joan Bakewell and Kenneth Williams.

‘Monty Python has had an unparalleled influence on British comedy,’ said Foss. ‘It’s very subversive and very self-consciously literary, so it fits in interestingly with the library’s literary collection’.

 

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