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Primarily oil portraits of 18th century literary figures. There are also engravings, and pen and ink and pencil sketches. Among the literary figures are portraits of Samuel Butler, Lord Byron, Thomas Carlyle; Colley Cibber; Charles Dickens; John Evelyn; John Foxe; David Garrick; Thomas Gray; Charles Lamb; Sir Thomas More; Sir Walter Raleigh; Samuel Richardson; Richard B. Sheridan; Alfred, Lord Tennyson; William M. Thackeray; and others. There is also a portrait by Blanche Ames of George A. Plimpton. Among the artists represented in the collection are James Maubert, Frederick Sandys, and William Hogarth (attrib.)

Letters, documents, and printed materials documenting Macy's publishing career, including that relating to the Nonesuch Press, dating from 1941 to 1960. Included also are photographs, awards, and financial papers. The correspondents include many of Macy's close friends including Peter Beilenson, William Rose Benét, Clifton Fadiman, Christopher Fry, Lillian Gish, Alec Guinness, Fritz Kredel, Frederic and Florence March, Francis Meynell, Bruce Rogers, Louis Untermeyer, Carl Van Doren, and Lynd Ward. Also, miscellaneous engravings, lithographs, and drawings. The collection also includes 3 series of books: Macy-Masius Readers Club, Readers Club and Heritage Press. Macy Memorial Limited Addition Club books were cataloged individually as MACYMEM

Correspondence, manuscripts, notes, diaries, documents, photographs, audio tape recordings, printed materials, scrapbooks, and sketches and drafts of portraits. Her finished portraits on ivory are cataloged separately for the Art Collection (q.v.). The collection includes her correspondence with friends and clients; manuscripts of her articles, lectures, and many unpublished autobiographical drafts; pencil sketches, watercolor drafts, and photoprints of her portraits on ivory; photographs of her family amd travels; clippings and other printed materials; and three scrapbooks of clippings and memorabilia. There is cataloged correspondence from Arnold Genthe, S.I. Hayakawa, Karen Horney, Burges Johnson, Dwight Macdonald, and Alice B. Toklas, etc.

The collection consists of several sub-divisions, such as bookplates with a printed date (over 300 bookplates, 1587-1800), ecclesiastical bookplates of the 17th and 18th centuries, and a large group relating to Cambridge and Oxford Universities (mostly 18th century). Well represented are bookplates of libraries, starting with a German bookplate, ca. 1580. Among the library bookplates of some significance are large dated German bookplates of the Royal Library, Munich, the earliest being dated 1614, the bookplate of the medical library, Frankfort, 1676, representing the view of a 17th century library, and a large collection of early American library bookplates.

Correspondence, manuscripts, playscripts, screenplays, diaries, documents, contracts, financial records, photographs, phonograph records, motion pictures, playbills, posters, sheet music, cartoons, art work, memorabilia, scrapbooks, and printed materials. . The collection consists chiefly of correspondence and production files relating to the creation, production, and performance of their works for stage, screen, radio, and television, such as Leave It To Me and Kiss Me Kate (with music by Cole Porter), Boy Meets Girl, and My Three Angels. Correspondence (with twentieth century authors, playwrights, musicians, political figures, and actors) includes: George Abbott, Jean Arthur, Bennett Cerf, Katharine Cornell, Jo Davidson, George and Ira Gershwin, Alec Guinness, W. Averell Harriman, Lilli Lehmann, Mary Martin, Laurence Olivier, Mary Pickford, Cole Porter, Regina Resnick, Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert E. Sherwood, Lincoln Steffens, Kurt Weill, Rebecca West, and Thornton Wilder. There is also correspondence concerning Bella Spewack's work with the New York Girls' Scholarship, UNRA, and the Sports Center of Israel. In addition to the production files, there are manuscripts and typescript drafts for novels, short stories, and articles by the Spewacks.

1992-1995 Additions: 138 volumes of his diaries, 1920-1994, have been added, as well as 12 letters from W.A. Craigie concerning new entries for the Oxford English Dictionary, 1 drawing in the style of John Leech, 2 19th century drawings, the manuscript of his "Young John of Gaunt; a poem in fourteen cantos", 22 engraved American portraits, 5 maps of the American Civil and Revolutionary Wars, 3 scrapbooks, World War I to 1976, his commonplace book, 1927-1990, several of his published books, and "The Sheriff's Prisoner", an autobiographical account of his 8 months in Brixton Prison for Obscene Libel on the publication of "Guido and the Girls", along with letters and documents re. this case.