The collection includes background and related material for Allen's books, an unpublished autobiography in five parts, several other unpublished writings, and a mass of largely unsorted typescripts of smaller items.
Box 1: Looking Back (autobiography): 1. Brompton Boy: Prelude to Adventure; 2. A Freelance Life: I collect people and their stories; 3. Freelance at Large: I collect more people with stories; 4. Authors, My Friends: a life's literary contacts; 5. Portrait in Greasepaint (centred on Ruby Miller). 2 files.
Box 2: Come Over Into Macedonia: Souvenirs of a Balkan Campaign. Mainly Personal: A Varied View of Life and People. Ink In My Blood. A Quest for Loving. Papers relating to Allen's book Underworld, including original notes by Charles Brooks, press notices, accounts for sales, and correspondence with agents. A Passion for Places: Exploring Town and Country. A Passion for Places: Abroad.
Box 3: They Live in History: Dramas and Romances of the Famous and Infamous. They Loved in History: a Pageant of Real-Life Romances. They Killed for Love and Other Notorious Murders. Remembering a Dancer (i.e. Ivey Collette Reuter). Heavenly Noises: the Kerb Musicians's Saga. Murder Most Natural, and other short stories of 'the lighter side of crime'. Contributions by Allen to 'Twenty Years After: the Battlefields of 1914-1918 Then and Now', ed. Sir Ernest Swinton, published in periodical parts, 1936-1938.
Box 4: When Words are Music: Love, Peace and War Poems. 3 files. Verse (Light). This Thing Called Love: the Story of Richard Haston (the first version of We loved in Bohemia). We Loved in Bohemia: a Radio Play adapted from the book. A pilot part-script only, with a synopsis of the remainder. Three Women: a Play by Trevor Allen and Ruby Miller. Jade Elephants: a Play in three acts, by Trevor Allen and Ruby Miller. Rousseau's Confessions: a Comedy in three acts.
Box 5: Rousseau's Women (an early version of the preceding item, with a letter to Allen from Julian Franks). Very Good, My Lord. Scenario for Film or Stage. By Madame Max Darewski (i.e. Ruby Miller). 'SS: General'. Short stories, c. 50 typescripts. Specimens of published articles, etc.
Boxes 6-10: Several hundred plays, mainly unsorted typescripts of articles, short stories, radio plays, poems, etc. The papers include some drafts of published and duplicate material. A letter to Allen from the author Cecil Roberts accompanies several articles on Roberts, and there are a few other letters to Allen accompanying the scripts to which they relate.