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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

Letters written to the publisher George T. Delacorte, Jr. from various literary figures, relating to the publication of their work in FAMOUS STORY MAGAZINE. Included are letters from Gertrude Atherton, Irwin S. Cobb, Theodore Dreiser, Ellen Glasgow, Fannie Hurst, Selma Lagerlöf, Edgar Lee Masters, Maxfield Parrish, and Wilbur Daniel Steele.

This archive consists of manuscripts, business files, production materials, and correspondence from 1966 -2012. The journal Hanging Loose was first published in 1966 was preceded by the journal Things, begun by two Columbia College students Emmet Jarrett and Ron Schreiber, Hanging Loose Press founders. The most recent issue #101 was published in 2013. The press has also published books, mostly poetry. The selection process is collective and inclusive. Hanging Loose publishes high school students and has dedicated issues to literature written by prison inmates. HL published Hettie Jones, long-time Columbia-affiliated poet Paul Violi, Jack Agueros, Sherman Alexie, and Charles North, as well as many of the collective members. Denise Levertov is a former board member.

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.

Schuster's correspondence including letters from authors Bernard Berenson, Will and Ariel Durant, Max Eastman, Nikos Kazantzakis, Max Lerner, Henry Miller, Bertrand Russell, and Louis Untermeyer; advertisements and other material relating to Pocket Books, Inc. which was owned by Simon & Schuster; and an author and title file containing correspondence, comments, and reviews of Simon & Schuster publications, and miscellaneous notes, clippings, photographs, manuscripts, and printed material.

The collection consists of the editorial and production archives of Random House, Inc. from its founding in 1925 to the 1990s. The correspondence and editorial files include many of the prominent novelists and short story writers from 20th-century American and European literature: Saul Bellow; Erskine Caldwell; Truman Capote; William Faulkner; Sinclair Lewis; André Malraux; Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder. Among the poets there are files for W. H. Auden; Allen Ginsberg; Robinson Jeffers; Robert Lowell; and Stephen Spender. In the area of theater there are files for Maxwell Anderson; Moss Hart; Lillian Hellman; Eugene O'Neill; and Tennessee Williams. Random House transacted business with many fine presses and noted typographers and the archives contain files for Nonesuch Press, Grabhorn Press and Golden Cockerel Press, as wll as for Bruce Rogers, Valenti Angelo, and Edwin, Jane, and Robert Grabhorn.

The collection consists of the editorial and production archives of Vanguard Press: correspondence, manuscripts, contracts, memoranda, galley proofs, photographs, clippings, and printed materials. The correspondence and editorial files contain a wealth of detailed information about individual authors and the growth and development of the Press. Among the cataloged correspondents are: Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, Stephen Vincent Benét, William Rose Benét; Phyllis Bottome; Pierre Boulle; Jocelyn Brooke; Cyril Connolly; A.J. Cronin; Nigel Dennis; John Dewey; Max Eastman; James T. Farrell; Vardis Fisher; Richard Garnett; Theodor Seuss Geisel; Louis Golding; Paul Goodman; Horace Gregory; Geoffrey Grigson; Lillian Hellman; William Heyen; Harold L. Ickes; Christopher Isherwood; Alfred Kazin; Philip Lamantia; Sinclair Lewis; Emanuel Litvinoff; Dwight Macdonald; Archibald MacLeish; Marshall McLuhan; Thomas Mann; Edgar Lee Masters; H. L. Mencken; William Meredith; Joyce Carol Oates; Katherine Anne Porter; Barbara Pym; William Sansom; William Saroyan; Ramon J. Sender; Upton Sinclair; Rex Stout; Edith Sitwell; Paul Theroux; Lionel Trilling; Harry S. Trumam; Louis Untermeyer; Eudora Welty; Richard Wilbur; and Thornton Wilder. There are some manuscripts by Bellow; Bottome; Boulle; Farrell; Grigson; Litvinoff; MacDonald; Oates; John Cowper Powys; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.; Patrick Tanner; William Targ; Theroux; and Sitwell.