The Scottish Executive has announced funding to assist with the purchase of a significant literary archive of works by authors including Byron, Scott, Darwin and Livingstone.

The Edinburgh government will hand over  £6.5 million in funding to help secure the John Murray Archive for the Scottish people.

The total cost is £33 million - with an additional £2 million needed to support the archive.

The Heritage Lottery fund has been asked to supply £22 million and the National Library must also raise £6.5 million to match the Executive’s contribution.

Ministers say the archive "is the most historically significant literary archive to become publicly available in the past hundred years".

Culture minister Frank McAveety said: "I am delighted to announce that the Scottish Executive will contribute £6.5 million from central resources towards the total cost of securing the John Murray Archive for the National Library of Scotland.

"The archive is a link to the critical role that Scots have played in the development of ideas and imagination through the centuries."

The documents and letters will be held in the National Library of Scotland.

John Murray, whose family owns the archive, added: "I am offering the Murray Archive to the National Library of Scotland as my ancestor, the first John Murray, who founded the publishing house in 1768, came from Edinburgh.

"It therefore seems appropriate that the archive should return home.  Also, so many Murray authors, such as Walter Scott, David Livingstone and Isabella Bird, were Scots, and throughout our history we have had close links with Scottish publishers and booksellers."

The National Librarian, Martyn Wade, said the archive had "a distinctly Scottish flavour".

"It’s wonderful that the Scottish Executive has set the fund-raising ball rolling. This is a unique treasure trove of invaluable artefacts and having them in the National Library of Scotland would be an immense achievement," he added.

Established in 1768, the firm of John Murray was one of the most influential of all British publishing houses.

It is only in recent years that researchers have started to recognise the extent of the John Murray Archive and the wealth and importance of its unexplored and unexploited holdings.

There are more than 150,000 letters in the collection.

It incorporates the most extensive and important collection of Byron in the world and include the major portion of the poet’s original manuscripts and annotated proofs, his surviving journals and the largest single collection of approximately 1200 of his own letters.

It also includes series of letters from J. M. Barrie, John Galt, William Wordsworth and John Constable.

The travel and exploration papers in the Murray Archive include papers from David Livingstone and Ernest Shackleton, and manuscripts of reviews by Sir Walter Scott.