Scope and arrangement
This is a synthetic collection consisting of manuscripts, typescripts, correspondence by and about the author, and financial documents. The typescripts include essays, notes toward works, and criticism. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence by the author, dating from 1922 to 1964, to Ronald Firbank, John D. Gordan (the first curator of the Berg Collection), Frances Steloff, and Sir Hugh Walpole. It also includes a number of letters related to papers of Gertrude Stein at Yale University. There are letters to Van Vechten from Ernest Augustus Boyd, Norman Douglas, Ronald Firbank, Robert Smythe Hichens, Edward James, Klaus W. Jonas, Arthur Machen, W. S. Maugham, George Moore, Marmaduke W. Pickthall, Muriel Pickthall, Matthew Phipps Shiel, Reginald Turner, Hugh Walpole, Alec Waugh, Rebecca West, and others, dating from 1911 to 1963.
The Carl Van Vechten collection of papers are arranged in three series: