The biographies are part of a donation of 220 books on major American and British political figures, all containing signatures and/or signed photographs.

The donation, made by former university librarian and emeritus fellow Colin Steele, is the result of 25 to 30 years of collecting.

He started by getting autographs from those who came through the ANU's Meet the Author event series - which Steele established - before branching out with the help of dealers.

"I thought, well if I've got Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson and Attlee, can I start working backwards?" he said.

"I knew I couldn't afford Churchill because he's just out of the ream of things so I then started working backwards and got Balfour and gone back to Sainsbury and Gladstone.

"And then similarly with the American collection, I'd picked up all these people from being a collector and I thought, well I'll fill the gaps in. And filling in some of the gaps was quite difficult because some of them again are getting very expensive like Kennedy."

Items from the British political collection includes works about or by many prime ministers and leading cabinet figures from Wellington through to 19th century prime ministers such as Gladstone and Salisbury. The 20th century editions included Lloyd George, Asquith, Balfour, Chamberlain, Attlee, Macmillan, Wilson and Margaret Thatcher, through to Tony Blair, David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

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The American political collection begins with Eleanor Roosevelt and then covers figures from the Kennedy era; the Carters, Reagans and Bushes; Bill and Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinski; ending with Joe Biden and Donald Trump with a signed copy of his book Surviving at the Top.

But it's the collection Steele has donated surrounding All the President's Men that is his favourite.

"Watergate was such a thing where the goodies won, which is now contrary to what's happening in the world and in America, to some extent," he said.

"So getting Bernstein and Woodward, and Dustin Hoffman playing the role in the film as well as John Dean and Nixon, and all of the Washington Post people - Katharine Graham, Ben Bradley. Having all of those people, I think that's a nice little group."

University librarian Roxanne Missingham said ANU was pleased to receive the special books, which would be added to the Rare Book Collection in the RG Menzies Library.

"We are working hard to rebuild our collection following the 2018 flood, and part of that is acquiring new and replacement items on the subjects of history and politics," she said.

"These books are a wonderful addition to our politics collection."

While the books will not be available on the open shelves as they are signed copies, Steele said there was the possibility of the books being exhibited for the public in the future.

"Then people can see them, and they can be used as exhibitions with the British ambassador or British High Commissioner or American embassy," he said.

"It's still a good situation because that's going to be here for perpetuity and people can look at the books and use them as a collection.

"If you've got first editions they're not really going to be terribly valuable as they used to be. But the autographs are all holding their value because you can't just replicate it digitally."