Literary Site Type: Literary Archive

Located at Duke University, the Rubenstein Library contains the Duke University archives, the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History, the Archive for Human Rights, and Archive of Documentary Arts. The collection contains the papers of Walt Whitman, Phillis Wheatley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Flannery O’Connor, and more.

The primary repository for rare books and manuscripts at Harvard University, the Houghton Library houses collections that focus on the study of Western civilization. Materials relating to American, Continental, and English history and literature comprise the bulk of these collections and include special concentrations in printing, graphic arts, and the theatre. Contained within the library are the papers of Samuel Johnson, Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Margaret Fuller, John Keats, Gore Vidal, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Theodore Roosevelt, T.S. Eliot, E.E.

Established in 1936, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library has grown to over 300,000 books and over 7,130 linear feet of manuscripts. Particular strengths lie in early printing and the Elizabethan and Stuart periods in England, with works by Shakespeare, various important editions of the Bible, and renaissance school books standing out as distinctive and deep collections. The Library is also renowned for its collections of incunabula and emblem books, the collections in the history of Mark Twain and his age, as well as the papers of such notable figures as William Maxwell, W. S.

Founded in 1997, the Hugo House offers writing classes and events, including the annual Hugo Literary Series, which invites established and up-and-coming writers to create new work and debut it at the house, and the Zine Archive and Publishing Project, which maintains a library of more than 20,000 handmade and independent publications. Residencies, one for an established writer and one for a youth writer, are also offered.