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Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, financial records, photographs, drawings, engravings, and printed materials of Benjamin. The personal and business papers concern Benjamin's publishing and bookselling company, his numerous benefactions, the disposal of his collections, and many printed catalogs for his company, 1883-1940. The two major correspondents are the business and financial records for the printing, binding, and extensive promotion through a network of agents of Stedman's A LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE FROM THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME; new ed. (New York, W.E. Benjamin, 1894). There are also letters, manuscripts, documents, and drawings of English literary figures collected by Benjamin. Among these are six letters of George Eliot, 47 letters and six manuscripts of John Ruskin, and three letters and one manuscript of Joseph Mallord Turner, with four letters relating to the artist. In addition there ten drawings and watercolors by Ruskin.

This collection contains the correspondence, editorial files and office files of the Columbia University Press, primarily from its reorganization in 1923 by Frederick Coykendall to the present.

A collection of letters, written to William Henry and William Worthen Appleton and others, relating to the publishing of books by the New York publisher, D. Appleton & Co. Among the correspondents are Charles Francis Adams, George Bancroft, Hall Caine, Hamilton Fish, Harold Frederic, Hamlin Garland, Edmund Gosse, Fitz-Greene Halleck, John Hay, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and Booth Tarkington.

The collection contains correspondence with the authors, including contracts signed with authors as well as negotiations with the authors over various aspects of publishing their works; financial records documenting many aspects of the operation of Harper & Brothers, including royalties paid to authors, records of stock offerings and company reorganizations, and general ledgers which contain daily notes on all aspects of the operation of the business; book catalogues and trade lists; research materials collected by Eugene Exman for his history of Harper & Brothers; visual materials, from drawings and photographs of Harper's authors to colophon designs and an oil painting of the original Harper's building.

Correspondence, manuscripts, contracts, memos., and photographs. The correspondence pertains to the publications of numerous important fiction and non-fiction authors. The files are particularly strong for authors included in two important historical series"The New American Nation" Richard B. Morris and Henry S. Commager, editors; and "The Rise of Modern Europe" William L. Langer, editor. The files of Cass Canfield Sr. contain substantial material on Planned Parenthood and International Planned Parenthood.

Correspondence, manuscripts, drawings, photographs, and printed material of Lax. Included are letters of Mark and Dorothy Van Doren and Thomas Merton. The bulk of the collection is comprised of Lax's poetry and journal manuscripts, many written in Patmos and Kalymnos, Greece, and originally sent to Emil Antonucci of the Journeyman Press in New York for publication. Also, printed photographs and unprinted negatives of pictures taken by Lax, primarily in Greece.

Woodblocks, linoleum blocks, wood and linoleum tools, wooden types, metal types, books, proofs, and special printings. Included are woodblocks and linoleum blocks of illustrations and decorations for Walt Whitman's SHORT STORIES (Columbia University Press, 1927), De La Motte Fouqué's UNDINE (Limited Editions Club, 1930), and Sir Walter Scott's IVANHOE (Limited Editions Club, 1940). There are several metal types designed and cast for Lewis; full or nearly full alphabets of special wooden types designed and cut by Lewis in both 216 pt. and 144 pt. sizes; specimens of his wood and linoleum tools, mainly of his own manufacture; books containing illustrations, decorations, and special types by Lewis; proofs of bookplates he designed; and proofs and special printings of various plates.