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The material in this collection was originally housed in binders in Barney Rosset's New York apartment, and cover his personal and professional endeavors as a radical publisher, intellectual, and overall man of letters. It consists of writings, letters, photographs, interviews, films, catalogs, publishing files related to both Grove Press and Evergreen Review, and extensive biographical information on Rosset. The entire collection has been rehoused into archival quality boxes and folders. Each binder had been labeled, generally with some sort of topical or chronological designation. In most cases the binder labels will be retained as file titles, and the subdivisions within binders have become folders and retained, to a great extent, the titles assigned to them by the creator. In some cases the staff of the RBML altered or elaborated on existing folder titles for general clarity and ease of research. In some cases, the collection contains both original and typed (or transcribed) copies, the latter often taking the form of computer printouts that were originally held in binders marked "Master" or "Master Disk" to indicate their contents were on computer disks. These original binder titles have been kept throughout the finding aid.

Correspondence with André Gide, the manuscripts and notes for his biography PORTRAIT OF ANDRÉ GIDE, and for his translations of the JOURNALS OF ANDRÉ GIDE, SO BE IT, and PRETEXTS, and other notes and articles about André Gide. Also, correspondence with many contemporary French writers including Albert Camus, Jean Cocteau, Julian Green, Valéry Larbaud, Jean Malaquais, Roger Martin du Gard, André Maurois, Henry de Montherlant, and Georges Simenon. Prof. O'Brien translated works by Baidouy, Albert Camus, Jean Cocteau, Henry de Montherlant, Nathalie Sarraute, and Jean-Paul Sartre; the typescript of Camus' L'EXILE ET LE ROYAUME is of special interest. Professor O'Brien's files cover a broad range of French culture including correspondence with other French scholars, educational organizations, editors, publishers (notably Blanche W. Knopf), with members of the OSS in wartime France, and with other literary figures such as Gilbert Highet, Dwight Macdonald, and Klaus Mann.