Correspondence, manuscripts of poems, and manuscripts of lectures by Benjamin. The correspondence consists of original letters of Benjamin, typescript and photostatic copies of Benjamin letters in other libraries, and letters to Benjamin from some of his literary contemporaries including Paul Hamilton Hayne, Willis Gaylord Clark, John Lothrop Motley, and Fitz-Greene Halleck. Many of the letters relate to Park Benjamin's lecture tours. There are other family letters and many documents relating to the Benjamin family,and two letterbooks of John Lothrop Motley. Also, a large amount of genealogical material of the Benjamin family, and its related families from the 16th century to the present day. There are also financial records, monographs, clippings, and photographs.

Personal and professional papers including correspondence, manuscripts, documents, diaries, journals, photographs, and printed materials relating to his teaching at various universities, his literary studies and writings, and his professional activities in such organizations as the Moder Language Association and P.E.N. His correspondents include contemporary authors such as Edmund Blunden, Christopher Hassall, Louis Kronenberger; scholars such as James P. Clifford, Leon Edel, and A.L. Rowse. There are also some letters collected by Halsband, including those by Mrs Piozzi, John Wilkes (1727-1797) and John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713-1792). Among the manuscripts are notes, drafts, typescripts, and proofs of his LIFE OF LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU (Oxford, 1956) and COMPLETE LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (Oxford, 1965-1967). Also, manuscripts and typescripts of Halsband's diaries, journals, lectures, articles, book reviews, and essays. The printed materials include ephemera, books, and offprints by Halsband and books by other authors inscribed to him. There is a watercolor portrait of Halsband by Stephen Andrews, London, ca. 1966.

Letters, manuscripts, notes, memorabilia, photographs, and printed material. Cataloged letters from George Colman the Elder, English dramatist; Lord Jeffrey, Scottish judge and critic; Andrew Lang, Scottish author; Robert Montgomery, English poet; Richard Parsons Rosse,1st Earl of Rosse; George Thomson, friend of Robert Burns and music editor; Bernard De Voto, critic, and S.R. Crockett, Scottish author. Cataloged manuscripts by Thomas Campbell, Scottish poet, James Montgomery, and E.I. Powell. Cataloged diaries of June and Coleman O. Parsons of their trip around the world in 1936-37. There are also ca.700 pages of notes by Coleman O. Parsons on various Scottish authors(including Sir Walter Scott), Scottish folk-lore and history, and Scottish poetry. Most of the notes concern his research on Francis Colman, George Colman the Elder, and George Colman the Younger. In addition there is the mss. for his book "Studies in Eccentricity"; the mss. of an 18th century Scottish ghost story entitled "A Cool Dialogue between the Living and the Dead" and notes and essays on Mark Twain, as well as a poetry album kept by Elizabeth Saynor Marshall and photographs of Parsons in South Africa.

Personal, business, and legal letters; manuscripts including prose, poetry, and diaries; and documents including deeds, receipts, invoices, and account books. The 18th century materials focus on the personal and business correspondence of Calvin, Jotham, and Martin Gay, sons of Ebenezer Gay who were engaged in shipping between New England and the Maritime Provinces. There are occasional letters of Jotham and Martin referring to the American Revolution. The Otis family correspondence of the 18th century, likewise, is of a purely routine and personal nature. There are only four letters of Col. James Otis, and only two of his son, James. Gay and Otis family interests intertwine during the 19th century with the marriage of Mary Allyne Otis to Ebenezer Gay, who are among the chief correspondents of this century, along with their children including Sidney Howard Gay and Winckworth Allan Gay. The Otis correspondence centers around business, real estate, and personal interests of Mary A. Otis Gay's brothers John, Joseph, and William Otis.

Letters written to Gay from political and literary contemporaries such as Horace Greeley, Charles Sumner, and William Bryant; reports in letter form from his reporters at the front during the Civil War; and personal correspondence including many letters from his wife, Elizabeth Neall Gay. Letters written to Mrs. Gay from family friends and business associates including many from her husband. Correspondence of other members of the Gay family including Walter Gay, Sarah Gay, and Allan Gay. Diaries, notebooks, and journals of Sydney Howard Gay.

Manuscripts by Payne, including plays, poems, journals, essays, account books, correspondence, letter books (to and from) including a large group of letters from Washington Irving. Also, pictorial material, scrapbooks, biographies, portraits, passports, and other documents; and materials on the Cherokee incident, 1835-1838, and Payne's arrest in Georgia. Other material include letters of various members of the Payne family and of related families. Of greatest interest is a group of fine letters and manuscripts of Eloise Richards Payne (1787-1819), a sister of the playwright. These present a sensitive and revealing portrait of the social, cultural, and political life of the time. Among the manuscripts and documents are many items of genealogical interest on the Paine, Shippen, Lynch, Luquer, and Lea families. Two boxes of the papers of Col. Thatcher Taylor Payne Luquer contain correspondence on various aspects of John Howard Payne's career, and on "An Unconscious Autobiography" the letters and diaries of William Osborn Payne (1783-1804), a brother of the playwright, edited by Col. Luquer.

The Kent Family Papers contains letters, manuscripts, journals, and documents of the Kent family. The bulk of this material is the papers of James Kent and of William Kent. Also included are autographs, letters, and various ephemera collected by the Kent, Pinckney, and Webster families.

The collection includes two diaries of his American tour (one is made up of his rough travel notes, the other is in edited form for circulation), a memorial volume of manuscripts about his wife (Ann Loxley Rhees) prepared by his daughter Eliza (Mrs. Nicholas Murray), and 1851 passport of Nicholas Murray, a letter of Thomas Chalmers Murray to his sister Mary Jones Murray Butler (the mother of Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University), correspondence between Welsh historian Gwyn A. Williams and collection donor Mary Butler Brown, an essay entitled "Morgan John Rhees and Beula" by Gwyn A. Williams, Ann Loxley Rhees's valedictory oration on graduation from Philadelphia's Ladies Academy, an address on female education ca. 1789, family obituary clippings, poems, misc. items, and a photograph of Ann Loxley Rhees. An edited version of substantial sections of the diaries of M.J. Rhees was published in John Thomas Griffith's 1910 biography and miscellany of Rhees and his family, a copy of which is included in this collection. An edited version of a previously unpublished section of the diary, from May 2nd to July 9th 1795, was published in Northwest Ohio History (vol. 80, no. 2), but it is an unreliable transcription containing many inaccuracies, according to Dr E. Wyn James of Cardiff University, who is working on a new edition of the M.J. Rhees diaries.

Correspondence, manuscripts, journals, documents, subject files, photographs, memorabilia, and printed matter. The collection includes Pillionnel's routine correspondence, manuscripts in French and English of his poems, plays and prose works, many of which are unpublished, and his "Journal Intime" which covers the period 1932-1972. Included is an oil portrait of Pillionnel by his friend Peter Hayward. One document folder contains Pillionnel family records (birth certificates, baptismal records, passports) from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

1992-1995 Additions: 138 volumes of his diaries, 1920-1994, have been added, as well as 12 letters from W.A. Craigie concerning new entries for the Oxford English Dictionary, 1 drawing in the style of John Leech, 2 19th century drawings, the manuscript of his "Young John of Gaunt; a poem in fourteen cantos", 22 engraved American portraits, 5 maps of the American Civil and Revolutionary Wars, 3 scrapbooks, World War I to 1976, his commonplace book, 1927-1990, several of his published books, and "The Sheriff's Prisoner", an autobiographical account of his 8 months in Brixton Prison for Obscene Libel on the publication of "Guido and the Girls", along with letters and documents re. this case.