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The series contains writings and illustrations related to literary efforts which were created by both professional and amateur writers and artists, primarily but not exclusively American. Found here are manuscripts, drawings, correspondence, and documents prepared by professionals for pay, publishers, or publication, and meant to be distributed to thousands of readers. Of note are the more than one hundred drawings by Palmer Cox featuring his trademark Brownies and Greenies, who scampered across pages in serials, drug company trade catalogs, and Cox's own books, puzzles, and toys; more than one hundred drawings and sketches by Felix Octavius Carr Darley to illustrate novels by the various popular authors he teamed with, including James Fenimore Cooper; more than three hundred drawings by Gelett Burgess of his silly but instructive characters the Goops; and a set of forty-four silhouettes drawn by Livingston Hopkins to illustrate Thomas Bailey Aldrich's translation of Emile de la Bédollière's The Story of a Cat (1878). In his preface, Aldrich praises Hopkins' "ingenious and spirited" drawings which he equates in importance to his contribution to the publication.