Collection is open to the public. Collection must be used in Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room. Collection or parts of collection may be stored offsite. Please contact Special Collections and University Archives in advance of your visit to allow for transportation time.
Paper finding aid with additional information is available in Special Collections & University Archives.
Robert Littell (1896-1963) was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and educated at Harvard University. From 1922 to 1927 he was associate editor of the New Republic, and from 1927 to 1931 he worked as a drama critic for New York newspapers. From 1942 to 1961 he was associate, then senior editor of Reader's Digest.
The collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, articles, books, and scrapbooks.
Correspondence is organized by subject and includes personal family letters from Robert Littell to his father, Philip Littell, and other family members (1909-1961), written from Harvard, with the Ambulance Corps, with the American Shipping Mission, with the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, with the American Relief Administration, with the Interchurch World Movement investigation of the steel strike in Pittsburgh, as associate editor of New Republic, and as associate and senior editor of Reader's Digest in Europe.
Also alvailable are letters of Anita Blaine Littell (Robert's wife) written from Europe to the Damrosch and Littell families (1949-1963), letters from Philip Littell to Robert and Anita Littell (1936-1940), letters from Mrs. Philip Littell (1933-1949), and letters to Robert Littell concerning the death of his father (1943).
Manuscripts are organized by title of work and may include outlines, drafts, editor and publisher correspondence, research, notes, revisions, and corrections.
The collection also contains books and other publications.
The scrapbooks contain manuscripts, correspondence, and published pieces of Littell's work.