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The Walter L. Pforzheimer Collection of Historical Manuscripts contains approximately 500 manuscript documents, circa 1370s-1870s, consisting of letters, legal documents, and other manuscripts written or signed by European heads of state, government, diplomatic, military or church officials, or literary authors. Most materials are French, including documents signed by French royalty and nobility, 14th-18th centuries. Many French manuscripts date from the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, including printed Revolutionary government documents completed in manuscript. A small amount of similar documents from other European countries and the United States are present. Some documents contain evidence of previous ownership, such as annotations, collectors' bindings, or bookplates. Also present are materials relating to Pforzheimer's research and collecting, 1920s-circa 1960s, consisting of card files, biographical notes, engraved portraits, and vendor descriptions.

Correspondence, writings, photographs, drawings, and other personal papers by or relating to Edmond Plauchut. The materials document Plauchut's literary works, his travels, and his life at George Sand's Nohant estate. Writings include early poems; manuscripts for the book Autour de Nohant (Paris: Calmann Lé́vy, 1897), the study Les anciennes provinces de France: Le Berry, and his unpublished memoir Les malheurs d'un homme heureux; a travel diary; and a humorous narrative of his adventures in the Philippines with drawings by Spanish artist Franciso Lameyer. Visual materials include caricatures of Plauchut by Maurice Sand and Francisco Lameyer, photographic portraits, and posters advertising performances at the Théâtre de Nohant, a puppet theater built by Maurice Sand.

The collection contains 121 unused bookplate specimens designed by Vytautas O. Virkau, including ex-libris for both individual and institutional patrons.

Thirteen large photographs of Cambodian and Vietnamese people. The individuals in the photographs have all been affected by the Vietnam War in some way. In addition to the Vietnam War, some of the individuals in the photographs from Cambodia were also affected by the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.

The collection contains correspondence, writings, photographs, scrapbooks and an audio recording that document the literary careers of Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovskii and IUrii Ofrosimov, the professional life of Italian sculptor Italo Griselli and the activities of the Russian expatriate Berlin Poets' Club.

The papers consist of correspondence and drafts of writings of several Russian exiles.

The Leonid Rzhevsky Papers consist of correspondence, writings, clippings and personal papers that document the work of Russian-born novelist and literary critic Leonid Rzhevsky. The papers span the years 1941-1987, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1950s and 1960s. The papers include material related to a few of Rzhevsky's works of fiction but chiefly document his critical essays, lectures and editorial work.
Correspondence and writings document Rzhevsky's role in the twentieth-century Russian emigre literary community in Europe and the United States. Rzhevsky was critical of the Soviet government and advocated for a unified emigre voice to propel Russian literary analysis into the post-Soviet era. Correspondence provides personal insights that are crucial to contextualizing Rzhevsky's creative writing, since his style of fiction approaches that of a memoir when addressing the fate of Soviet refugees (especially in post-War Germany).

Letters from Russian émigré writers to Terapiano, accompanied by clippings, programs to literary events, and holograph manuscripts by Russian writers. In addition there are letters from émigré writers to Konstantin Lupakov and translations by Lupakov.

Incoming (86 TLS, 85 ALS) and carbons of outgoing (127 TL) correspondence, mostly regarding Russian émigré publications, literary and church affairs. Includes the typescript of Samarin's "Front v tylu (Bolʹshevistskoe podpolʹe v zani︠a︡tykh nemt︠s︡ami oblasti︠a︡kh SSSR, 98 p., 1951) and the page-proofs of works by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin with annotations by Bunin.