BOBBS-MERRILL MSS.
The Bobbs-Merrill mss., 1885-1957, are the papers of The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana. They have been arranged alphabetically by author and include autobiographical questionnaires, correspondence in chronological order, readers' opinions, promotional material, and libel cases, if any, alphabetically according to the titles of the books. Among the bound volumes are stockholders meetings, January 4, 1885 to August 25, 1947; minutes of the board of directors, February 25, 1913 to October 9, 1917, October 16, 1917 to July 20, 1926, July 27, 1926 to May 16, 1935; general ledgers, 1898-1902, 1908-1909, 1914-1915; author's ledgers, No. 1, 1090-1912, No. 2, 1909- 1918; record of publications by title, 1913-1917; royalty records and reports, 1898-1939, except for 1918 for which there is a dramatic and syndicate small volume; newspaper story purchases arranged by state, 1902-1940; The College Book Exchange, The FTC, and Reid vs. Bobbs-Merrill, 1950's; Law Series, correspondence with Baldwin Publishing Company, Bruce Publishing Company, 1908-1939; W.K. Stewart and Company, correspondence and papers, 1908 and 1932; salesmen, T.E. Goff, Texas, 1920's, W.S. MacNamara, Massachusetts, 1920's; Bookstore accounts, Harlem Book Co., New York; Tennessee, 1957; drama and production rights, 1910's; and miscellaneous letters, 1908-1940. The collection has not been cataloged.
The collection has been partially described in "Studies in the Bobbs-Merrill Papers," edited by Edwin H. Cady, in The Indiana University Bookman, no. 8 (March, 1967), pp. 1-116. A dissertation in 1975 by Jack O'Bar entitled "A History of the Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1850-1940: with a postlude through the early 1960's" (LZ2 .O124) was derived largely from the Bobbs-Merrill mss.
Collection size: 131,056 items