The George Palmer Putnam Collection contains correspondence, a scrapbook, manuscripts, and artwork pertaining to George Palmer Putnam's publishing enterprise from before the Civil War. There are approximately 1650 letters, 17 manuscripts, and more than 50 artworks in the collection. The correspondence originally fell into five distinct sections, four of which were organized alphabetically, and one randomly, in scrapbooks. The first part was marked "Private," although there is a mixture of private and professional letters in it. The artwork depicts the writers of particular letters and sometimes their homes as well. Fifteen of the manuscripts are drafts of descriptive and anecdotal articles by various authors (still in part unidentified) for Putnam's 1853 publication entitled Homes of American Authors. There are letters by the authors represented in this publication in the correspondence series.