Random House records, 1925-1999
Scope and Contents
The collection consists of the editorial and production archives of Random House, Inc. from its founding in 1925 to the present
time. The correspondence and editorial files include many of the most important novelists and short story writers in American
and European literature: Saul Bellow; Erskine Caldwell; Truman Capote; William Faulkner; Sinclair Lewis; André Malraux; Gertrude
Stein and Thornton Wilder. Among the contemporary 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 most important book published by Random House was James Joyce's ULYSSES.
Because of its alleged obscenity, it was only legally admitted into the United States after a long battle by Random House
in the courts ending in 1934. The Random House Archives contain letters and documents relating to this famous case.
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