The papers comprise family correspondence, general correspondence, handwritten and typed drafts (including the original sketches for many of his stories and the drafts of three novels which were never completed), notebooks of articles and book reviews, newspaper cuttings, invitations, printed material and other papers. There are also papers relating to Waten's membership of the Literature Board of the Australian Council for the Arts, his Presidency of the Melbourne Centre of International P.E.N. papers on his membership of the Communist Party of Australia and Socialist Party of Australia.