The Hurst Papers consist of a small quantity of correspondence (most of it between Hurst and her school friend Lois Toensfeldt), the manuscript for her novel Quiet Street, some diary material, and a group of clippings and memorabilia. Special Collections also holds Hurst's personal collection of her published work which includes a complete set of first and variant editions, translations, and other copies of her books.

The David Jackson Papers consists of extensive correspondence, photographs of family and friends, and manuscript material towards Jackson’s poems, stories, and plays.

The Charles Johnson Papers hold both published and unpublished work from the author spanning nearly six decades. The collection brings together manuscripts, drafts, correspondence, artwork, and ephemera and serves as a testament to Johnson’s wide-ranging career as a public intellectual.

Manuscripts, scrapbooks, and clippings of work by Clark Mills McBurney. Also included are excerpts from work by William Jay Smith and Tennessee Williams concerning their youth in St. Louis, where they were both friends with McBurney.

The collection holds a wide variety of materials that document James Ingram Merrill's entire life.

The extensive correspondence is between Merrill and his family, friends, business associates, and others. Thousands of pages of heavily annotated notebooks, typescripts, worksheets, and galleys show Merrill's work towards poems, fiction, and drama. The audiovisual and personal material document other aspects of Merrill's life.

This modest collection details the early personal development and subsequent professional activities of Stratford Lee Morton. The collection is particularly strong in chronicling the planning for the1953 – 1954 Worlds Fair in St. Louis (which was ultimately not conducted) and for records of the Academy of Science in St. Louis.