New York University's Fales Library and Special Collections is located on the third floor of the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library on the university's Washington Square Park campus. It houses nearly 200,000 volumes, and of archive and manuscript materials, including the Fales Collection of Rare Books and manuscripts in English and American literature,New York Times, RARE BOOKS GET NEW N.Y.U. HOME; Library for Growing Fales Collection Opens Today the Downtown Collection, Fales Library Is NYU’s Archival Oz the Food and Cookery Collection,The Fales Library and the general Special Collections from the NYU Libraries.The Fales Library
Collections The Fales Collection was given to NYU in 1957 by DeCoursey Fales in memory of his father, Haliburton Fales. It is especially strong in English literature from the middle of the 18th century to the present, documenting developments in the novel. Other related collections held in Fales include The Berol Collection of Lewis Carroll Materials, the Robert Frost Library, the Nelson F. Adkins collection of American Literature, and the manuscript collections of Elizabeth Robins, Peter Straub, E. L. Doctorow and Erich Maria Remarque. An area of recent growth in Fales is the Food and Cookery Collection of well over 15,000 books. The personal libraries of James Beard, Cecily Brownstone, and Dalia Carmel form the core of this collection
The Downtown Collection documents the downtown New York city art, performance, film, and literary landscape from 1975 to the present.Marie Sophie Beckmann, Films That Spill: Beyond the Cinema of Transgression, Rutgers University Press, 2026, pp.12, 24, 34-40, 99 In addition to thousands of published books and magazines, the Downtown Collection includes extensive holdings of archival and manuscript material, film and video, original artwork, theatrical models, and other realia. Fales Library Is NYU’s Archival Oz Archival holdings range from the personal papers of writers such as Dennis Cooper, David Wojnarowicz,The David Wojnarowicz Papers Richard Foreman and Lynne Tillman to the papers of publishing ventures such as High Risk Books and Between C & D to the archives of organizations such as Creative Time and Mabou Mines and the Gonightclubbing.
The Fales Library preserves manuscripts and original editions of books that are rare or important not only because of their texts, but also because of their value as artifacts. The Downtown Collection archive is rich in late 1970s and 1980s punk rock and no wave post-punk videos, drawings, films, photos, interviews, posters, correspondences and other ephemera.The Fales Library
Tracey-Barry Gallery The Tracey-Barry Gallery offers public exhibits of materials from the Library's collections.
Personal archives The Fales Library holds the personal papers and/or archives of the following, among others: Robert Blanchon John Canemaker Mary Ellen Carroll Jerome Charyn Dennis Cooper E. L. Doctorow Mary Beth Edelson Richard Foreman Riot Grrrl Robert Hammond Kathleen Hanna Mary Harron Sarah Jacobson Group Material Joseph Nechvatal April Palmieri Elizabeth Robins Peter Straub Lynne Tillman David Wojnarowicz
Footnotes
External links Fales Library Homepage and Finding Aids