Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

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.

Collection includes 67 letters and telegrams, by Alexander's older brother Nikolaĭ; 65 letters and notes, some copies, by Nicholas II, from 1902-1913; a drawing and notes by Alexander III; and drafts of letters by Meshcherskiĭ. Also included is a group of letters in different hands hitherto identified as having been written by Nikolaĭ, Duke of Leuchtenberg, to Meshcherskiĭ.