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The John Knowles Papers document the career and personal life of American author John Knowles between 1954 and 2000. The papers provide insight into Knowles's career as an author and consist of correspondence, writings, notebooks, scrapbooks, printed material, personal papers, audiovisual media, and other papers. The papers also include a portrait (pencil on paper) of Knowles by Don Bachardy. There is some material relating to Knowles's friendships with Truman Capote and Thornton Wilder. Various drafts of his writings, including A Separate Peace and its companion novel Peace Breaks Out, reflect Knowles's creative life.

The Marcia Nardi collection contains correspondence and writings documenting her work as a poet between 1949 and 1983. The collection contains letters to Nardi by Louise Bogan, Marguerite Caetani, Randall Jarrell, Norman Holmes Pearson, Alec Waugh, Thornton Wilder, and others, most offering personal and professional advice and assistance in her efforts to complete a volume of poems. There is also a manuscript miscellany, "The New Helicon," in the hand of John Edmunds and a typescript of Nardi's poem "Femelle de l'homme." The collection also contains John Edmunds Papers pertaining to Nardi including correspondence from Nardi to Edmunds and typescript drafts of her unpublished book "Collected Poems."

The Louise Talma Papers contain materials relating to composition and performance of Talma's opera The Alcestiad, and to Thornton Wilder, his friendship with Talma, and his collaboration with her as librettist for The Alcestiad. Contents relating to The Alcestiad, 1950s-1970s, include autograph letters, signed, to Talma from Thornton Wilder, 1952-1975 and undated, and from his sister Isabel Wilder, 1954-1972, with some letters annotated by Talma; autograph manuscript music drafts; diazo reproductions of autograph manuscript full scores and vocal scores, including a German translation by Herberth E. Herlitschka; microfilms of scores; autograph manuscript drafts by Wilder of the libretto, and typescript mimeograph copies of the libretto; audiocassettes and reel-to-reel audiotapes of performances, 1960-1962 and undated; photographs of performances; and clippings of reviews. Other papers, 1940s-1980s, include scores and parts for other vocal, orchestral, and chamber works by Talma, most diazo reproductions of autograph manuscript scores, 1947-1980 and undated; other writings by Wilder, most typescript, 1953-1973 and undated; clippings relating to Wilder; concert programs and other printed material, most concerning performances of Talma's music; and photographs, most of Talma with Wilder or with musicians, 1956-1962.

The collection contains research files, interviews, correspondence, writings, and other materials relating to Gilbert A. Harrison's biography of Thornton Wilder, The Enthusiast: A Life of Thornton Wilder (New Haven: Ticknor & Fields, 1983). Harrison's research files, which include notes, photocopies of correspondence and writings, and clippings, make up the bulk of the collection. In addition to the research files, the collection includes: sound recordings of interviews with members of the Wilder family and others, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Lillian Gish; correspondence with Wilder family, scholars, and publishers; a corrected draft of the biography and reviews; and other materials, including biographical information, a copy of Wilder's will, and reference photographs.

The papers and films document the friendships between Elizabeth Fuller Chapman (1893-1980) and several writers and artists, most notably Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder. Letters in Box 1 date from 1932-1976. Printed material in Box 1 includes theater programs, clippings on Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and interview notes and transcripts from the filming of the 1970 documentary by Perry Miller Adato, "Gertrude Stein: When You See, Remember Me." The films in Box 2 are three reels of black and white 16mm motion picture film, duplicates made in 1982 of the original 16mm footage. One film, titled "Winter Parties," contains footage of parties at Chapman's home in Chicago between 1934 and 1935, and includes a scene from a 1934 holiday party with Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder. The other two films, titled "Lectures," were made by Chapman during trips to Paris between 1934 and 1938. The films were used during Chapman's lectures. Scenes feature notable artists, writers, dancers, philosophers, and gallerists, including: Pedro Pruna, Constantin Brancusi, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Pablo Picasso, Colette, Thornton Wilder, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp, Igor Stravinsky, Nicolas Nabokov, Francis Poulenc, Salvador and Gala Dali, André Derain, Chick Austin, Christian Berard, Leonide Massine, Bernard Faÿ, Mary Garden, Louis Marcoussis, and Edouard Vuillard.

Correspondence, writings, diaries, photographs, artwork, research materials, printed materials, and other papers by, to, or related to Samuel Steward. Correspondents include Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, George Platt Lynes, and Thornton Wilder. Writings include drafts of homoerotic novels written under the nom de plume Phil Andros, and a translation of Querelle of Brest by Jean Genet. A focus of the papers is Steward's sexual exploits, which are documented in diaries, photographs, and other papers, including Steward's stud file cataloging his sexual partners and records and writings produced for sexologist Alfred Kinsey. The papers also include writings, photographs, clippings, artwork, and other materials related to Steward's work as a tattoo artist, including correspondence from Don Ed Hardy. Artwork includes pen and ink tracings of illustrations by Jean Cocteau, for Genet's Querelle, a portrait of Gertrude Stein by Carl Van Vechten inscribed by Stein, and a charcoal portrait of Alice B. Toklas.

Consists of letters to Peyre chiefly from French authors, plus one letter from Peyre to Donald Wing enclosing a typescript of Paul Claudel's "Partage de midi," which Peyre had made from the play at the Bibliotheque Nationale.

The Cleanth Brooks Papers contain correspondence, manuscripts of books, textbooks, essays, lectures, and various other shorter works, classroom material, professional papers, writings of others, and personal papers which document aspects of the life and career of Cleanth Brooks.

The collection consists of letters, manuscripts and other publication material, and other papers related to Thornton Wilder. Included are extensive letters to his close friends Amy Wertheimer and William Layton; letters of literary advice to Joe Etta Lee Clarke and Hester Pickman; and materials concerning his publicist, Lee Keedick, and his publisher, Harper and Row.