Correspondence, notes, drafts, proofs, publications, research materials, clippings, correspondence, and other materials collected and used by Cowley for his writings. Files can be named by person written about (e.g. Fitzgerald, Sargent), by name of author of a work submitted to Cowley (e.g. Adams, William - Voyage), by title of Cowley’s work, whether published or not (e.g. Exile’s Return, Lost Generation), by a general subject (e.g. Alcoholics, Illiteracy), by or types of writing (e.g. Editorials, Lectures, Obits, Poems, Reviews, Teaching Materials). The Working Files were accumulated by the library from Cowley in sequential decades and from various filing systems. Therefore, there are many overlaps, inconsistencies and redundancies in the series, maintained just by nature of attempting to keep Cowley’s filing system(s) as true to the original order as possible. Some of the file names for unpublished or unfinished projects are quite vague (e.g. “Perhaps Towards a Novel”; “Towards a Book of Criticism”) but were kept nonetheless. It is entirely possible that the contents of the folders may include material that was published in later essays, books, or works.

Within the Working Files, the Viking section contains author files, contracts and agreements, copyright renewals and permissions, correspondence, financial, interoffice business, portables business, publicity, and reports. The author files contain correspondence with the author, interoffice memos in regard to the author, and sometimes works by the author. Also included in author files are editors of portables and Viking Critical Library editions. The correspondence section consists mainly of correspondence between Cowley and his coworkers about Viking business.

Original folder titles and comments were kept and placed in the front of the folder; oftentimes these have colorful or illuminating descriptions of the folder contents.

This series contains important correspondence, so it is necessary to check both this series and the Correspondence Series for letters between Cowley and his friends and coevals.