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The files of John Cushman Associates, Inc. include correspondence with authors, publishers, and other agents and deal with the editing and publishing of American and English books, serial rights, reprints, dramatic rights, translations, foreign rights, promotion, and copyright registration.

Correspondence; biographical forms; typescript biographical entries, often corrected and amended by the subjects; documents; proofs; memoranda; notecards; photographs; clippings of reviews; and other printed materials for the project with the working title "Who's Who in the American Theatre." The materials were assembled by Walter Rigdon, editor, and James H. Heineman, publisher, from 1963, when the first biographical forms were sent out, until 1969, when plans for a second edition were abandoned. The 1101 page volume which was published under the title "The Biographical Encyclopaedia & Who's Who of the American Theater" includes 3350 biographical entries for theater people and a necrology of 9000 names, playbills from 1959-1964, histories of theater buildings and theater groups, production records of Plays staged in New York since 1900, a theater bibliography of 600 entries, lists of awards, and lists of foreign productions. Among those for whom original materials were included are Truman Capote, John Dos Passos, Richard Eberhart, T.S. Eliot, Arthur Miller, Elmer RIce, and Virgil Thomson.

The files of Curtis Brown, Ltd. literary agency include correspondence with authors, publishers, and other agents and deal with the editing and publishing of trade and textbooks, serial rights, reprints, dramatic rights, translations and foreign rights, promotion and copyright registration. For each author there are contracts, royalty statements, tax statements, and other financial materials. There is also a contract file, including cancellations and related correspondence, from 1914 to 1988. Among the cataloged correspondents are: Louis S. Auchincloss, W.H. Auden, Erle Stanley Gardner, Robert Graves, Ogden Nash, Ayn Rand, and Sloan Wilson.

Correspondence, outlines and drafts, manuscripts, letters of agreement, contracts, photographs, artwork, and memorabilia. The collection is divided into two parts: the Frederic Dannay papers and the files of ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE (EQMM). The Dannay papers consist of extensive correspondence with most of the notable mystery writers of this century, as well as well-known authors who sometimes wrote in that genre: Isaac Asimov; Lawrence Block; Ray Bradbury; Pearl S Buck; Edgar Rice Burroughs; James M. Cain; Raymond Chandler; Agatha Christie, etc. Most of the novels and short stories written by Dannay and Lee are represented in manuscript form: "The Roman Hat Mystery;" "Ten Day's Wonder;" "Cat of Many Tails;" "The Scarlet Letters;" "The Glass Village;" "The Player on the Other Side;" "And on the Eighth Day" etc. In addition, there are the manuscripts of books edited by Ellery Queen; manuscripts by Ellery Queen Jr.; scripts by Ellery Queen; poetry by Dannay; contracts between Dannay and Lee, as well as between them both as Ellery Queen and numerous parties. There are also manuscripts by such notables as Jorge Luis Borges; Erskine Caldwell; Raymond Chandler; Agatha Christie; Stanley Ellin; William Faulkner; Dashiell Hammett; O Henry; Nigel Morland; Georges Simenon; Muriel Spark; Julian Symons; Roy Vickers; and Cornell Woolrich.

The files of the literary agency include correspondence with authors, publishers, and other agents and deal with editing and publishing, serial rights, reprints, dramatic rights, translations and foreign rights, promotion, copyright registration, contracts, royalty statements, tax statements, and other financial materials, and the personal affairs of many clients. Among the cataloged correspondents are: Louis S. Auchincloss, Erskine Caldwell, Herbert Gold, Alberto Moravia, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Rebecca West.