Scope and arrangement
This is a synthetic collection consisting of typescripts and manuscripts, correspondence, legal documents, and portrait photographs. The manuscripts and typescripts include poems and drafts of poems, essays, and criticism, as well as the carbon typescript of her first novel, "Process." The correspondence includes letters from the author, dating from 1925 to 1985, to Babette Deutsch, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ian Franckenstein, Herbert Mitgang, Frances Steloff, Louise Morgan Theis, Lafayette Young, and others. Also present are letters, dating from 1944 through 1987, between various individuals, including Ian Franckenstein, Joseph Franckenstein, William Lawrence Shirer, and others relating to the author. There are letters from Joan Baez, Djuna Barnes, Herb Caen, Marchette Gaylord Chute, Ruby Cohn, Babette Deutsch, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Hugh Ford, Norman Macleod, Howard Nemerov, Shawn Hsu Wong, and others, to the author, dating from [1938] to 1986.
The Kay Boyle collection of papers are arranged in four series: