The collection consists primarily of correspondence of Sloane (Princeton Class of 1929) during his publishing and editorial career, which is documented in several publishing files. These include papers of the Association of American University Presses when Sloane served as vice-president and president (1966, 1969-70), including letters by Alden H. Clark, executive director; the Council on Books in Wartime during Sloane's trip to China (1943-44); the Visiting Committee of American Book Publishers that published the report German Book Publishing after World War II (1948); and the publishing houses of Henry Holt and Company (1938-46) and William Sloane Associates (1946-52). There is a significant amount of correspondence between Sloane and Lambert Davis of the University of North Carolina Press and Weldon A. Kefauver of the Ohio State University Press, as well as explanatory letters, written by Sloane at the time of Princeton University's acquisition of these files.

Additions to the papers include general correspondence with Dodd, Mead & Company, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Ernest K. Gann, J. B. Rhine, Rutgers University Press, William Sloane Associates, Richard Wormser, and others; correspondence related to Sloane's novels and science fiction anthologies; fan mail; manuscripts of his novel Edge of Running Water (1939), a report "To Chungking," and articles, speeches, and plays; also correspondence and memorabilia of Sloane's trips, for book publishing concerns, to China in 1943 and Germany and Austria in 1948.