This collection includes nine letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as letters of Louis Agassiz, Amos Bronson Alcott, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, John Lothrop Motley, Charles Sumner, and John Greenleaf Whittier. In addition, there are two incomplete manuscripts by Emerson and one document from the Liverpool Custom-house signed by Nathaniel Hawthorne as Consul for the United States. The collection also includes the corrected typescript, index, and page and galley proofs for Thomas Franklin Currier, A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (New York, 1953) which was edited by Professor Tilton. Also, some early correspondence and photographs of the Tilton family and friends. There are letters from the actors Annie Louise Ames, Richard J. Dillon, and Hans L. Meery to Tilton's grandfather, Bernard Paul Verne, as well as photographs, tintypes, and daguerreotypes of the Verne family and friends.

1992 Addition: Her professional papers include correspondence, manuscripts, notes, and printed materials on many aspects of 18th and 19th century American literature, especially literary New England. Among her papers are files compiled in editing volumes 7 and 8 of THE LETTERS OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON (New York, 1939-1991). These files contain correspondence, card files, notes, transcripts, photocopies, book typescripts, printed materials, and other related items. There are also similar files relating to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and to her books, AMIABLE AUTOCRAT: A BIOGRAPHY OF DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (New York, 1947) and LITERARY BANTLINGS: ADDENDA TO THE HOLMES BIBLIOGRAPHY (New York, 1957).