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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 and manuscripts of Van Doren, consisting of letters, poems, short stories, novels, plays, radio broadcast transcripts ("Invitation to Learning"), diaries, critical works, proofs, and printed works. Correspondents include Louise Bogan, Philip Booth, Babette Deutsch, Richard Eberhart, T.S. Eliot, John Gould Fletcher, Herbert Gorman, E.W. Howe, Robinson Jeffers, Archibald MacLeish, Louis MacNeice, Edgar Lee Masters, Lewis Mumford, Hyam Plutzik, Allen Tate, and Louis Zukovsky. Also, extensive correspondence with Robert Lax and Thomas Merton, as well as manuscripts by these two authors.

This collections consists of John Purroy Mitchel's (Columbia College 1899) college papers, notebooks, essays and exam books. There are also penmanship handbook and exercise books.

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.

Correspondence, manuscripts, memoranda, contracts and other legal papers, advertising, and printed materials. The files, 1958-1978, of the Harold Matson Company, Inc. include correspondence with authors, publishers, and other agents and deal with the editing and publishing of American and English books, serial rights, reprints, dramatic rights, translations, foreign rights, promotion, and copyright registration. The contract file of McIntosh, McKee & Dodds, Inc. Literary Representatives is also included.