The Sullivan Collection contains 11 series: 1) Hilaire Belloc Materials (Three subseries: Miscellanea, Pieces BY Belloc, Pieces ABOUT Belloc), 2) Catalogs, 3) Correspondence, 4) Events, 5) G.K. Chesterton Society, 6) Miscellaneous, 7) Personal Papers (Two subseries: Notes, Publications – Related Materials), 8) Publications, 9) Scrapbooks, 10) Tapes, and 11) Unpublished Materials.

Hilaire Belloc was a contemporary and a good friend of G.K. Chesterton. John Sullivan’s collection contains many items relating to Belloc which are now in the Belloc series, divided into three subseries: Miscellanea: related publications, some original materials, caricatures, etc., Pieces BY Belloc: pamphlets, articles, etc., and Pieces ABOUT Belloc: articles ranging from 1913-1980.

The Catalogs series contains various sales listings from booksellers with some annotations by Sullivan. The Correspondence series includes letters between Sullivan and Dorothy Collins (Chesterton’s secretary and heir), Aidan Mackey (Chesterton scholar), The Wade Center, and a wide variety of other correspondents between 1946 and 1982.

The Events series contains publicity and publications from a variety of Chestertonrelated events, particularly exhibitions of original Chesterton materials and the 1974 Chesterton Centenary celebrations. The G.K. Chesterton Society series has financial records, meeting minutes, publicity, and newsletters from the Chesterton Society (based in the UK).

The Miscellaneous series includes various Chesterton-related items such as caricatures, word puzzles, photographs, bibliographic listings, and a selection of enclosures from books that came with the Sullivan Collection which are now stored in the Wade Center book collection.

The Personal Papers series holds some personal papers of John Sullivan, divided into two subseries: Notes: handwritten notes and lecture outlines, and Publications – Related Materials: with short published pieces by Sullivan and materials relating to his booklength publications. See also: the scrapbook series for additional articles by Sullivan.

The Scrapbook series has 9 scrapbooks and their inserts (pieces which have become detached from scrapbook pages). Contents of the scrapbooks primarily contain published articles by and about Chesterton, Belloc, and other related topics. Scrapbooks 6 and 8 are stored in the Oversize section of the archive, A-19a-b.

The Tapes series is a collection of 15 audiocassette tapes which include interviews with John Sullivan, BBC radio programs in honor of Chesterton, Chesterton’s voice (see Wade Center sound recording collection for these same recordings on CD), music inspired by Chesterton’s works, and some non-Chesterton programming. The quality of the recordings varies greatly, and portions of the tapes have been digitized on CD when the recording quality and the nature of the content seemed appropriate.

The final series, Unpublished Materials, contains typescripts of essays, articles, and reviews about Chesterton and his works.

The original listings of the Sullivan Collection, received when the papers first arrived at the Wade Center in 1984, may be viewed upon request. Within those listings and on the original boxes, abbreviations used by Sullivan were as follows: “PC” for press cuttings, “HB” for Hilaire Belloc, “F” for spring-back files (many of which were discarded due to deterioration), and “GK” for G.K. Chesterton. Numbers written on pieces found in this archive often relate to Sullivan’s original typed catalog (ex: 958 ii would relate to item 958, part 2 in the catalog). The Wade Center implemented an additional numbering system to the physical boxes with the abbreviation “SUL” for “Sullivan” and then the box number (1-36). Example: SUL-25 would be Sullivan box 25. These numbers are no longer in use, but may appear in records relating to this archive.