A BID for millions of pounds of lottery money to buy an archive of manuscripts and letters by writers such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron and Charles Darwin has been attacked by leading literary figures as a waste of money.

The Heritage Lottery Fund will decide on Tuesday whether to give £16.5m to the National Library of Scotland to help to buy the collection, owned by the publisher John Murray.

The library argues that the purchase will allow the archive, which contains 10,000 letters to Byron alone, to be opened to the public for the first time.

However, John Sutherland, professor of English at University College London and chairman of the judges for this year’s Man Booker prize, said that the archive was “a plumless pudding” which reveals nothing that experts did not already know.

His view is supported by A N Wilson, the author, who argues that Murray, descendant of the 18th-century founder of the John Murray publishing company, should give away the archive. “He’s a very rich man,” said Wilson.

The purchase is also controversial because the Scottish executive has offered more than £6m towards the £32m price.

“There are lots of very poor people in Scotland and taxpayers’ money would be better used on them,” said Wilson.

Murray made several million pounds when the publishing company was sold to Hodder Headline in 2002 for £20m.

He retained ownership of the archive. However, he argues that its sale will not enrich him or his family. If the sale goes ahead the proceeds will go to a new charitable trust, the income from which will help to support the library and archive.

Murray thinks that the collection, which holds original drafts by many authors as well as files of correspondence and journals from 1768 to 1920, would be best housed in the National Library of Scotland because his forefathers set up the publishing firm in Edinburgh. The documents have been valued on the open market at £45m.

Among the most interesting papers in the collection are exchanges between Austen and her publishers. She came to John Murray after he agreed to pay to publish Emma.

Whether or not the £16.5m bid succeeds, several other applications will be rejected. The fund has less than £40m to spend but the nine bids to be considered come to £90m.

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