Box 20

Scope and Contents This series contains the majority of Cohen’s papers and reflect a prolific and creative writing life, including copious notes, manuscript drafts, and revisions that trace the outlines of his creative process. This series also includes print publications of Cohen’s work, including his award-winning collection, Before Stonewall. Cohen wrote across genres and, as a true working writer, he often adapted his work into different formats and genres—novels into...

Scope and Contents Records in the Personal series reflect aspects of Cohen’s personal life. Highlights include notes to his parents, letters received and written, and several handwritten journals. Assorted Personal Ephemera includes programs from art exhibits, memo/to-do style notes/lists, a couple of photographs and a copy of Oxygen, which was signed and personalized to Cohen, but does not include his work. Correspondence includes notes to Cohen's parents, a...

Scope and Contents

The Novels and Novellas subseries contains materials related to Cohen's longer fiction writing, including drafts of published and unpublished manuscripts. This subseries includes several notable versions of $250,000, Cohen's first novel--a typed draft of the novel, a marked-up copyediting pass of the book, and an uncorrected proof from G. P. Putnam's Sons (the publisher)--demonstrating some stages of the American publication process during the mid-to-late 1960s.

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This subseries contains short fiction manuscripts, as well as an honorable mention award in a short fiction contest. Versions of some of these stories are also included in Cohen's memoir, but it is not known if names were fictionalized for any of the versions.

Additional examples of Cohen's short fiction are included in the Collections and Anthologies subseries, under Shadow: Part 1 and in the Publications subseries.

Scope and Contents

These materials include programs from art exhibits (some with images cut out), memo/to-do style notes/lists, and a couple of photographs.

Scope and Contents Materials in this subseries reflect Cohen's work writing plays and musicals. Several of these works were produced for the stage, as documented in Cohen's Scrapbook, including City Boy, The Complaint Department Closes at Five, and Cakes with the Wine. The papers related to The Complaint Department Closes at Five illuminate Cohen's creative process, from the many notes he used...

Scope and Contents

These materials include notes to Cohen's parents, a letter from Ronald Sabaroff mentioning the gay scene in Munich in 1970, and a letter to "Joe," a possible critique partner of Cohen’s.

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The Nonfiction subseries includes materials related to Cohen's nonfiction writing, including drafts of published work, such as a manuscript draft of Working on a New Play, and unpublished work, such as a memoir in-progress(Stories for My Grandson), and a proposal for a book about Broadway lore (Broadway Legends).

Scope and Contents

This collection also includes hardcover and trade paperback printed editions of Working on a New Play, located in Book Tote 1.

Scope and Contents

Materials in this subseries include manuscripts and promotional materials pertaining to collections and anthologies that contained Cohen's work, either self-created collections (as in Shadow: Part 1) or published anthologies to which he contributed work.