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Correspondence, manuscripts, memorabilia, photographs, phonograph and tape recordings, and printed files. Included are Cerf's personal correspondence files, 1929-1945, and the diaries and scrapbooks which he maintained from his school days throughout his active career. The diaries, in date-book format, contain terse notes on Cerf's meetings with authors and friends, on his travels and publishing activities; the scrapbooks contain correspondence and photographs, as well as memorabilia and printed items, and were annotated by Cerf and his wife, Phyllis Fraser Cerf Wagner. Also in the collection are manuscripts and proofs for Cerf's books including "The Laugh's on Me""Treasury of Atrocious Puns""The Sound of Laughter""Stories to Make You Feel Better", and "At Random: the Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf", which was edited by Phyllis Cerf Wagner and Albert Erskine, 1977. The papers also include condolence letters written at the time of Cerf's death, photographs and photo albums,certificates and awards, and miscellaneous printed material, including Random House and Modern Library catalogues. Among the major correspondents are: Truman Capote, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Edna Ferber, Moss Hart, J. Edgar Hoover, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon B. Johnson, John Lindsay, Joshua Logan, John O'Hara, Jacqueline Onassis, Richard Rodgers, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gertrude Stein, Adlai Stevenson, Harry Truman, and Robert Penn Warren

A collection of letters from authors, critics, and scholars, primarily relating to lectureships and courses given under the auspices of the English Department. Some of the correspondence, notably the ten letters from Amy Lowell, deal with essays written for the revised edition of C.D. Warner's LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE. The letters are written to Ashley H. Thorndike, John W. Cunliffe, George R. Carpenter, Ernest H. Wright, and Marjorie Nicolson. The correspondents include John Mason Brown, Marchette Chute, Robert P. Tristram Coffin, Padraic Colum, Bernard DeVoto, T.S. Eliot, John Erskine, Robert Frost, Otto Jespersen, Howard Mumford Jones, Joyce Kilmer, Ludwig Lewishon, Amy Lowell, Archibald MacLeish, Thomas Mann, Brander Matthews, H.L. Mencken, Christopher Morley, Ezra Pound, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles P. Snow, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, and Edmund Wilson. Two boxes of miscellaneous uncataloged correspondence cover the years, 1896-1917, and a folder for the 1935 Mark Twain Centennial sponsored by the English Department. The correspondence is chiefly with Ernest Hunter Wright.

Papers documenting Longwell's influential career in publishing and journalism. There are files of correspondence with such notables as Sir Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Hart Benton, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Christopher Morley, and H.L. Mencken as well as artists such as Tom Lea and Peter Hurd. Also, correspondence and memoranda dealing with the Time-Life organization, among them an extensive series of letters from Henry R. Luce and various editors of the magazines.

Correspondence relating to Erskine's various educational, musical and literary interests; manuscripts of his writings; lecture notes for college courses; souvenirs of his army service in World War I and his Columbia University professorship, and student papers from his own school and college days. Also, biographical file, scrapbooks, and articles.