This project is centred upon the recordings of a series of lectures Raymond Williams gave in Cambridge in 1972 which became his landmark book ‘Marxism and Literature’ (1977). On loan from Merryn Williams, the daughter of Raymond Williams, they capture the beginning of what Williams described as an attempt to set his work ‘into a new and conscious relation with Marxism’ for the first time. They have never been archived or made public before; they have remained in the Williams family since 1972. The recordings map the formulation of what would become Williams’s theory of cultural materialism. The transcribing, publishing, and digitising of these unique tapes will allow for a greater understanding of his intellectual processes and reveal how his thinking was often conducted in lectures and public talks; these never-before-heard recordings are sites of creative critical thinking and capture a significant moment in the intellectual and cultural history of Marxist literary theory in Britain. They take five forms: 1) lectures never before transcribed or published; 2) the original recordings of what became essays published in collections such as ‘Resources of Hope’ and ‘Culture and Materialism’; 3) the reading of published articles (for example ‘You’re a Marxist, Aren’t You?’; 4) the dictation by Williams of his fictional work; 5) the full version of work only ever published in abridged form. The results of this project will be disseminated in three ways: 1) free, online downloads of the audio recordings of the Williams lectures; 2) publication by Verso of a Raymond Williams centenary edition of his unpublished/uncollected writings; 3) an article for ‘Historical Materialism’ on the Cambridge 1972 Marxism and Literature tapes.