Collections : [Yale University -Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]

The Richard Aaron Collection of Ira Cohen contains correspondence, writings, artwork, photographs, production files, and other papers by, to, or relating to Ira Cohen's life and work.

The Argus Book Shop Correspondence consists of the shop's "author correspondence" files holding letters between Ben Abramson and his staff and more than four hundred writers, artists, printers, critics, and illustrators; the remainder of the shop's records were destroyed following instructions he had written into his will. While some of the folders hold single or just a few letters, Abramson had more extensive relationships with many writers and artists, including John Austen, Faith Baldwin, March Cost, Frederic Dannay, Norman Davey, Rhys Davies, August Derleth, Robin Douglas, Joan Marshall Grant, W.G. Hardy, Claude Houghton, William McFee, Henry Miller, Frank Cheyne Papé, Louis Paul, Frederic Prokosch, William Saroyan, Harold Sinclair, and John Steinbeck. Hundreds of Abramson's typed carbon replies are present in the files, and discuss business and literary concerns, along with his philosophies and opinions on a wide range of topics. To many of the writers with whom he became close, Abramson freely dispensed personal advice. On the business end, his letters show that he regularly recommended and shipped literature to Argus patrons, including Alfred Kinsey and other scholars and authors, as well as searched for and obtained from other vendors books specifically requested by patrons. Contracts in the folders for John Anthony Carr and Stanley Marks reveal the existence of the Argus Agency: A Service for Writers, wherein Abramson acted "as a personal representative for authors and as an agent for any and all literary, dramatic, motion picture or other such material produced by them." The largest group of letters present is those between Abramson and the writer Henry Miller (1900-1968), which cover in detail many aspects of Miller's career, finances, and travels between 1937 and 1955. Abramson published some of Miller's writings and sold most of his publications, as well as providing a mail-order service for sending Miller (and Miller's friends, on Miller's account) his own works and new titles by other authors. With the Miller correspondence is a folder holding Connecticut Anthroposophical Society membership lists and redacted letters from people across the country who were attempting to purchase Miller's Tropic of Cancer (1938). In addition to publishing and retailing books, Abramson handled the sale of literary manuscripts for authors such as W. Somerset Maugham, whose file contains a price list of works available for purchase at Argus.

Autograph manuscript letters, signed, of Janet Achurch and Charles Charrington and their correspondents. Letters concern: casting of theatrical productions; investing in theatrical projects; Charrington's involvement in the Fabian Society; and other professional and domestic topics. Correspondents include George Henry Boughton, Stopford Augustus Brooke, Charles H. E. Brookfield, Harley Granville-Barker, St. John Emile Clavering Hankin, Henry Holiday, Gertrude Kingston, May Morris, Felix Moscheles, William Poel, Charles Rock, Kate Santley, Clement Scott, William Sharp, Arthur Streeton, Julian Sturgis, Fred Terry, John Todhunter, Hermann Vezin, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and Sir Frederick Wedmore, and unidentified. Also included is a booking sheet for the Vaudeville Theatre, London, circa 1880.

The Peter Ackroyd Papers primarily contain research files, manuscripts, drafts, and page proofs for many of his novels, biographies, and historical studies, as well as related correspondence and screenplays. Also present are his appointment books, some personal papers and photographs, and papers related to his partner Brian Michael Kuhn.

The collection consists of manuscript and typescript drafts of Harold Acton's translations of Chinese literary works and his writings; correspondence from Chinese, English, and American scholars and friends; material relating to Acton's lecture tour of Italy; and other papers. Highlights include the unpublished manuscript for Popular Chinese Plays, as well as correspondence concerning its projected publication by Henry Vetch. Also included is an annotated typescript and related correspondence for Acton's novel, Peonies and Ponies (1941). Material sheds light on the development of literary translation between Chinese and English, and the influence of China on British intellectual history and literary life during the period preceding the Second World War.

The Georgii Adamovich Papers are contained in one box. The papers contain the correspondence from and to Georgii Viktorovich Adamovich, one book by I.A. Bunin, and poems by G.V. Ivanov.

Typescripts with holograph annotations and corrections of Adams' books The Disputed Lands (Putnam, 1981); Geronimo: A Biography (Putnam, 1971); Sitting Bull: An Epic of the Plains (Putnam, 1973); and Sunlight and Storm: The Great American Plains (Putnam, 1977). A photocopy of Adams' TLS dated 1972 Jun 29, transmitting the typescript of Geronimo to Yale and commenting on the work, is filed in the first of the folders of that title. Bound galley proofs for Sitting Bull follow the typescript.

The collection consists of material created and collected by Charles Adams in the course of his research and teaching activities as a scholar of Frank Waters and a professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Material includes correspondence; transcripts and sound recordings of interviews with Waters; sound recordings of various seminars, lectures, and talks about Waters; typescripts of writings by and about Waters; photocopies, reprints, and excerpts of published works by Waters; clippings and other printed material; teaching files; files relating to the Frank Waters Society; and other material. The collection documents Adams's academic career, which focused largely on Waters, and his role as a leading organizer of the scholarly and popular communities interested in Waters, particularly as founder of the Frank Waters Society and editor of Studies in Frank Waters. The collection also sheds light on the nature and organization of the community of interest that sprang up around Waters's work, and provides a great deal of information about Waters in the taped and transcribed interviews conducted by Adams and others.

The bulk of the collection consists of the papers of Illinois State's Attorney Julius S. Grinnell, who led the prosecution in the Haymarket trial in 1886-1887. These include trial evidence, notes and drafts of legal briefs, personal papers, and printed ephemera. The collection also includes a few items that were added to Grinnell's papers in the 1950s-60s by collector Frederick B. Adams. Trial evidence is chiefly in German, and consists of manuscripts, correspondence, leaflets, and other items seized from the offices of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, a publication of the International Working People's Association, with which many of the defendants were involved. The manuscripts are chiefly holograph drafts of editorials by August Spies and Michael Schwab; much of the correspondence is to Spies, including several letters from Johann Most, editor of the New York paper Die Freiheit. The evidence also includes other socialist and anarchist newspapers, as well as fragments of the bomb that exploded in Haymarket Square. Papers of the State's Attorney's Office include Grinnell's notes and drafts of legal briefs prepared for the trial and for the defense's appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court in 1887. These include a draft letter from a police spy to Lucy Parsons, Albert Parsons's wife. Also present are personal papers of Grinnell: most relate directly to the trial while others document his later career. The collection also contains printed ephemera of the socialist and anarchist movements, including a number of items relating specifically to the Haymarket affair. Among these are cabinet card photographs of six of the eight convicted men.

Photographic prints created and collected by Harry Adams, 1943-1985, that chiefly document events, activities, and individuals related to the African American community in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of California captured in his work for African American newspapers including the California Eagle and Los Angeles Sentinel.