Content Description

The Jules Archer Papers consist of an extensive collection of book manuscripts, articles, short stories, article ideas, outlines, research materials, and correspondence covering a time span from the 1940s through the 1970s. Jules Archer's collection contains many political, historical, and biographical books written for young readers, as well as work written for popular periodicals, including Esquire, Playboy, and Good Housekeeping.

The Jules Archer Papers are arranged into five distinct series. The first of these series is General Correspondence. A large quantity of Archer's correspondence is from his agent, the August Lenniger Literary Agency, over a period of ten years, from 1952 to 1962, as well as correspondence from the author's many publishers, including Julian Messner, Crowell, and Hawthorn Books. Also included in the correspondence are a number of acceptance and rejection letters received during his writing career. Series I: General Correspondence has been divided into Incoming and Outgoing correspondence. The Outgoing correspondence is organized chronologically, beginning in the 1940s and continuing up into the middle of the seventies. The Incoming correspondence is organized alphabetically by the author of the letter, or the institution that the author represented. It should be noted that much of the correspondence relating to his research is not found in this series but has been filed instead with the pertinent work in the second and third series.

Series II: Literary Works contains materials relating to full-length books that were eventually published. Included in this series are various manuscripts and preliminary drafts, along with research notes. This series also includes galley proofs, printers' copies, page proofs, and various production notes. The series is arranged alphabetically by the final title of the work.

Series III: Article Ideas and Outlines, is, as the title suggests, a collection of Archer's article ideas and outlines. With these are his research materials as well as some correspondence from potential markets. Because of the unfinished and sometimes fragmentary state of some of these ideas the arrangement of these articles is somewhat scattered. In an effort to remain true to the author's own arrangement, the articles and ideas are arranged first by title of the work (if it was known), then by the publisher, and lastly by the year or decade it was written.

Series IV is Miscellaneous materials. These materials include library slips, catalogs from publishers, insurance and pension information from the Writers Guild of America, East. Also included in this are random newspaper clippings, business cards, and other ephemeral items. With only two folders, this is the smallest series of the collection.

The final series in the Jules Archer Papers contains photographs from the collection. This is a small series with photographs containing only black and white photographs for Archer's book Epidemic.