The collection consists of papers reflective of both Willard and Margaret Thorp's careers as authors and critics, Willard's years as a professor of English at Princeton University, and Margaret's early career in journalism. The bulk of the collection dates from the years (1930-1970) when they published the majority of their articles, reviews and books, gave their speeches, and when Willard taught his classes and was acting chairman of Princeton's English Department.

Willard's papers consist mainly of correspondence with professional colleagues; friends, particularly Allen Tate and Caroline Gordon, but also including T. S. Eliot, William Meredith, James Meriwether, Robert Penn Warren, Robert Lowell, Archibald MacLiesh, and John Berryman; organizations, such as the Modern Language Association, and the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni; and publishers of his works, including the American Book Company, Charles Scribner's Sons, and the J. B. Lippincott Company. Much of the correspondence relates to books he wrote or contributed to, such as Modern Writing, The Lives of Eighteen from Princeton, Great Short Works of American Realism, and A Southern Reader. There are also manuscripts of articles and speeches Willard wrote, as well as class lecture notes of the courses he taught at Princeton (1932-1967), miscellaneous material regarding a senior poetry seminar, several diaries, publisher's contracts, photographs, printed matter, papers of others, and four recording of conversations with Thorp. Included is an album of original poems dedicated to Willard by seven Princeton poets, presumably his former students. A later accession consists of over 100 offprints of articles by contemporary literary scholars and critics; many of these pamphlets are inscribed to Thorp.

Margaret's papers consist of drafts of Charles Kingsley, 1819-1875 and Female Persuasion: Six Strong-Minded Women, speeches, articles, notebooks, correspondence with Allen Tate and Caroline Gordon, Vivienne Heigh (Mrs. T. S. Eliot), family letters and correspondence with her publishers, and family sketchbooks and photographs.