Guide to the Modern Literature Collection - Instructions

This guide to Washington University’s Modern Literature Collection is an alphabetical listing of personal names and organizational names primarily responsible for creating collections related to 20th and 21st century literature. These collections combine print and manuscript materials from leading modern authors. Each name entry may have several parts.

1. The first part is the the name itself. Dates of birth and death often follow names, but not always. We follow Library of Congress practice as to when and how to use these dataes.
2. After the name and biography are links to related materials. The first link is always a link to our online finding-aid. The link text is a name followed by a collection number in brackets. The collection number can help you ask for materials that interest you from our collections.
3. Next we have information about the format of the materials in the collection, a range of dates for the material in the collection, the number of items in the collection, and a description of the availability of the collection for research or consultation. In cases when it is impossible to determine an exact item count or precise dates, approximate figures are indicated by the abbreviation "ca." In all but a few cases, the materials in these holdings are open to researchers. Any restrictions on the use of specific holdings are noted under the "ACCESS" heading.
4. The next part is the biographical entry itself
5. Since bibliographic information for literary figures is often inaccessible, a selected listing of bibliographic sources, is included, when available, after the collection description. In some cases, the user is referred to unpublished bibliographies.
6. The final portion of each entry is a selective listing of names of significant literary figures whose manuscript materials are present in that collection. For the sake of brevity, the exact holdings are not detailed in this list of names. These listings are alphabetical and provide the author’s name, birth, and death dates. Holdings vary from scores of items to a single item, and information on detailed holdings can be obtained from the online finding aid for that collection.