From the middle of the Second World War until the end of the Swinging Sixties, a small British film production company based at Elstree Studios assembled — quite by accident — what must surely be the most comprehensive survey of mid-twentieth-century British fiction ever written. For nearly thirty years, the employees of the Readers’ Department at the Associated British Picture Corporation read thousands of newly-published novels and then wrote lengthy, highly detailed reports on each, looking for new film projects for the studio. ABPC’s readers reviewed almost everything being published at the time — very much more than the literary press had space for and all at much greater length, from new books by established names to backlists of authors who had enjoyed recent screen success, as well as new work by emerging writers, many of whom were about to embark on stellar careers. ABPC readers also attended performances of new plays, and read and reported on unsolicited manuscripts and screenplays, all in search of material suitable for film adaptation.

The reports offered in this list are all written in the ABPC house style: summary, then detailed synopsis, and finally the reader’s comments on the material’s quality and filmic possibilities. They are a very small sample, but a representative cross-section, of the archive’s contents: unique documents, never intended for public consumption, unseen since their composition, and never before offered for sale. We hope you find much to interest you — and we welcome enquiries regarding specific authors of the period, however obscure. It’s very likely we’ll be able to help you

A digital copy of the catalogue can be accessed by clicking the image below. Print copies can be requested but are subject to availability.