The Working Papers were issued in July 1966 following a meeting of the CPL authors in Oxford on 24 June. They consisted of 2 parts: 1. The second edition of the Elementary Programming Manual and 2. An unfinished Reference Manual. The concluding paragraphs of the minutes of the 24 June 1966 meeting (see MS. Eng. misc. b. 270/C.156) state: 'The circulation of the CPL Technical Report will conclude the phase of effort on CPL which has continued for the past four years, and at this stage most authors will probably wish to discontinue their efforts in a formal way... CPL of course needs major further work, particularly on data structures and program segmentation. C.S. (Strachey) and D.P. (Park) propose to study this at Oxford, and M.R. (Richards) may implement it at M.I.T.'

Strachey's preface to the Working Papers, which gives a useful account of the history of CPL and its documentation, has been heavily drawn upon in preparing the entries for this section of the catalogue.