Papers of Philip Whalen, American poet, novelist, and Zen Buddhist associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance.

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 papers of artist and Beat Generation figure Robert LaVigne. The collection contains correspondence, artwork, and event invitations.

The Thomas Parkinson Papers contain correspondence between Parkinson and members of the San Francisco literary scene, such as beat poets Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen. The collection also includes manuscripts written by Parkinson and his friends and associates.

Correspondence, manuscripts, notes, printed materials, and tape cassettes assembled by Tom Clark in writing his WRITER: A LIFE OF JACK KEROUAC. There is correspondence from friends and fellow writers of Kerouac, printed materials about Kerouac and The Jack Kerouac Conference, 1982, at the Naropa Institute (Boulder, Colorado), and five drafts of Clark's book manuscript. Among the correspondents are Carolyn Cassady, Robert Creeley, Edward Dorn, and Allen Ginsberg.

Correspondence of Brown with other contemporary writers including Bernard Citroën, Malcolm Cowley, William Eastlake, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Jean Malaquais, Charles Olson, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Jonathan Williams, and William Carlos Williams. Much of the correspondence is informal and deals with the writing and publishing of Brown's novel THE WAY TO THE UNCLE SAM HOTEL, and with other literary interests.