The William H. Gass Papers consist largely of his own manuscript material: manuscripts and proof material toward his books, drafts of various stories, essays, and reviews, interviews, and a miscellaneous assortment of notes and other materials. Also present is a substantial amount of professional correspondence, primarily with universities, magazines, and publishers, as well as with his colleagues in academia and in the literary community.

The Herbert Howarth Papers consists of material relating to Howarth's book, Notes on Some Figures Behind T. S. Eliot (1964) and includes his letters to and from T.S. Eliot. Howarth submitted drafts of his text to Eliot for comment and several drafts of the book with marginal corrections by Eliot are housed in the collection. The collection offers a unique opportunity to view the response of the subject of a critical biography to the views of a biographer.