The collection contains correspondence, writings, and personal papers documenting the personal and professional life of American poet and editor Harvey Shapiro. Correspondence consists chiefly of letters to Shapiro from American and English-language authors, literary critics, and editors who came of age in the post-WWII period. There are files for Barbara Gibbs and Francis Golffing and for author and publisher Alan Swallow, but letters can also be found for Charles Bernstein, Allen Ginsberg, David Ignatow, Robert Lowell, George Oppen, and others. Many letters from writers are addressed to Shapiro in his capacity as editor of The New York Times Magazine or The New York Times Book Review. The Writings series contains writings by Shapiro, material relating to work by Shapiro, such as publicity and reviews, and writings by others. Shapiro's writings feature drafts for a number of poetry collections, including Lauds and Nightsounds (1978), The Light Holds (1984), National Cold Storage Company (1988), and This World (1971), as well as shorter works. The writings by others may have been solicited by or submitted to Shapiro in his capacity as editor and separated from accompanying correspondence. Personal papers include clippings and programs, financial and legal records, and a small number of photographs.
The collection consists primarily of artwork and storyboards for books authored and illustrated by Harvey Weiss, as well as correspondence, clippings, printed material, photographs and other material relating to various book projects and several illustrated journals. The collection documents Harvey Weiss's career as a children's illustrator and author, and his process of researching, writing and illustrating books.
The Helene Mullins and Marie McCall Papers consists of correspondence, writings, and photographs by and relating to the American authors and sisters Helene Mullins and Marie McCall. Correspondence is highly fragmentary, consisting chiefly of letters from Jean and Zohmah Charlot and John Hall Wheelock to Helene Mullins. Photographs depict Mullins and McCall from childhood to later adulthood, and also include portraits and snapshots of family members and friends. Writings include drafts of Mullins's poetry, an autobiographical novel by Mullins entitled The Loving are Daring, and the unpublished diaries of Marie McCall.
The Henry James Collection is comprised of correspondence, writings, personal papers, and printed material by and about the American author Henry James. The majority of correspondence consists of letters sent from James to recipients, most notably his literary agent James B. Pinker, author William Edward Norris, and publishers. The collection also includes correspondence between James B. Pinker and James' nephew, Henry James, and sister-in-law, Alice Howe Gibbens James. Autograph manuscripts for "The Pension Beaurepas," The Europeans, and "New England: An Autumn Impression," can be found in the collection. Personal papers include a photograph of James with Mrs. Humphry Ward and a cancelled check received by James from Ticknor and Fields.
The Henry Miller papers contain writings, journals, administrative files, correspondence, photographs, and personal papers chiefly documenting Miller's life and career from the 1950s through 1970s.
The Henry Seidel Canby Papers document many aspects of Canby's personal life and professional activities as a writer, editor, and educator. The collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, lecture notes and other course materials. Canby corresponded with educators, literary critics,publishers, writers and other public figures. Correspondents include Sherwood Anderson, Mary Hunter Austin, Stephen Vincent Benét, Robert Seymour Bridges, Willa Cather, Jerome Davis, Walter De La Mare, Bernard De Voto, Lee Wilson Dodd, T. S. Eliot, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, George Frisbee, Ernest Gruening, Ezra Pound, H. M. Tomlinson, and Louis Untermeyer. Manuscripts include drafts of many of Canby's books, articles, essays and speeches. Canby's affiliation with Yale University as a student and later as a faculty member is documented by his correspondence and by lecture notes and related course materials. Canby's sister Kit attended Vassar College and the correspondence files include her letters written while she was a student in the 1890s.
Collection contains correspondence, writings, clippings, and other materials documenting the life of author Hermann Hagedorn. Correspondence in the collection consists of letters to and from family, friends, other writers, publishers, scholars, and well-known political and cultural figures from the first half of the twentieth century. Noteworthy correspondents include Stephen Vincent Benét, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Percy MacKaye, Ezra Pound, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Albert Schweitzer, as well as Theodore ("Teddy"), Franklin D., and Eleanor Roosevelt. Writings include drafts and research materials for articles, plays, poems, short stories, speeches, and biographical works. In addition, there are clippings on Hagedorn and reviews of his literary and biographical works. Other materials include medals, music, photographs, printed materials, and a scrapbook
Collection contains correspondence and other materials relating to the family of American novelist and author John Hersey. Correspondence contains letters from John Hersey and members of the Hersey and Baird families. There are letters from John Hersey to his parents dating from his graduate studies in Cambridge, England, in 1936 and 1937, to dispatches written as a war correspondent, in 1942, while in the South Pacific. Other materials include various family papers, such as John's school books, a copy of his undergraduate thesis, "The Letters of John Trumbull," clippings and printed ephemera, photographs, and manuscript notes by Roscoe Monroe Hersey. Photograph albums contain images of China, circa 1907 and 1908, the Hersey family, and France in WWI, and a scrapbook documents the lives of Hersey children, starting in 1912
The H. L. Mencken Collection consists of writings, correspondence, and other material by and relating to the American author H. L. Mencken. Works documented in the collection include early poems, short works of opinion and journalism, and longer books such as The American Language (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1919) and Treastise on the Gods (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930). Writings consist of drafts in various stages, setting manuscripts, and proofs, many of which are corrected. Several manuscripts are signed and inscribed by Mencken to journalist and collector Bradford F. Swan. Correspondence is chiefly outgoing and relates to the themes that are prominent in Mencken's writings (American politics, language, and society) as well as to the business of Mencken's writing. In addition to writings and correspondence by Mencken, the collection includes writings about Mencken, particularly the work of Margaret Lappin, sister of his longtime secretary, Rosalind Lohrfinck.
The Hound & Horn records contain correspondence, drafts of writings, financial records, and ephemera relating to the literary quarterly. The records feature original letters from well-known Modernist era authors during the tenure of the journal from the late 1920s through mid 1930s, including Bryher, Jean Cocteau, E. E. Cummings, René Daumal, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, François Mauriac, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Stephen Spender, Gertrude Stein, Robert Penn Warren, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukosfky, among others. There are also letters from publishers and editors, copies of outgoing letters, third-party letters, financial and legal records, and scattered drafts. There are drafts, some corrected, of work by Cummings, Daumal, Bernard Faÿ, Varian Fry, James Hanley, Pound, Spender, and Williams. The Pound files contain corrected typescript drafts for Cantos XXVIII, XXIX, XXX.