The papers in this collection reflect the personal and professional life of Charles Morrow Wilson, a man who made his living as a writer from the early 1920's to his death in 1977. Besides his free-lance career in several genres, he was employed by institutions, governments, and corporations, almost always in the capacity of interpreting those entities in print. His life's work, therefore, produced extensive records, primarily of a literary nature, with litle documentation of his corporate responsibilities.

Charles Morrow Wilson was a careful correspondent who saved incoming letters and made copies of outgoing letters, even personal ones. He also collected printed material to use for research, photographs for research and illustrations, financial records, and a large number of typescript, carbon, and holograph manuscripts, drafts, and notes. The material was received unarranged in large packing boxes and file cases. Many items were in poor physical condition, especially photographs.

The material has been arranged in 6 series: correspondence, literary manuscripts and related items, photo-graphs, financial records, printed material, and family and personal documents. The bulk of the collection is literary manuscripts. The correspondence is further arranged in subseries. The manuscripts and photographs are further arranged into subseries and files. For more detailed information and box and folder contents see individual series descriptions and container listings.

In addition to the strong biographical value of the entire collection, each series contains specific information that is noteworthy. The family and personal correspondence has letters about: the creation of Wilson Park in Fayetteville, real estate in Arkansas and Vermont, Charles Morrow Wilson's association with the University of Arkansas, the production of the musical Acres of Sky, Arkansas politics, particularly the career of Governor Orval Faubus, and Vermont politics, particularly environmental issues. All of the family correspondence and several items in the personal correspondence are restricted for reasons of personal confidentiality.

The personal correspondence from Charles Morrow Wilson to residents of Fayetteville is primarily concerned with Wilson Park and the University of Arkansas. Many well known political and literary figures are among his other personal correspondents. Charles Morrow Wilson's health, acknowledgements of gift books, work schedules, and real estate transactions are among the most frequent subjects. The professional correspondence reveals Wilson's role as an executive with United Fruit Company during the 1940's. It also vividly creates a record of his publishing career, full of acceptance and rejection letters, discussions with agents, and contract negotiations.

The literary manuscripts are primarily incomplete versions of unpublished work. Nonfiction topics include: biography, agriculture, economics, history, and health in the rural United States, the banana trade in Middle America, Vermont history, and Arkansas culture and politics. One file contains multiple versions of a controversial Reader's Digest article on Governor Orval Faubus. Another file illustrates Wilson's lifelong interest in the Ozark region. Wilson published works of fiction early in his career and worked in that genre again in the 1960's. Over half the fiction subseries contains several forms of an unpublished novel set in the Maya country of southern Mexico.

The photographs are largely unidentified scenes, most of them snapshots, taken in Liberia, Middle America, and to a lesser extent, the rural United States. Two groups record the banana and rubber industries in the 1940's and 1950's. They are arranged according to country. The most impressive set of photographs covers a 1946 archeological expedition to Bonampak, the Maya temple in Chiapas, Mexico. Included are artist's renderings of the temple murals and prints of native Lacondone Indian village life made by Giles Greville Healy. The family and personal photographs are important for biographical reasons. They include several portraits of Wilson from his young manhood to old age.

The rest of the collection is of peripheral interest with the exception of a few periodicals from the 1920 's and 1930's containing articles by Wilson, and a collection of certificates, degrees, and citations signifying hallmarks in Wilson's life.