Consists of typescript drafts, editorial copies, galleys, dust jacket proofs, and notes by other writers with whom Charles Ruas collaborated, including materials he received as gifts from authors, as well as materials directly related to books he edited. Writers represented include Marguerite Young, Susan Howe, Helen Adam, Djuna Barnes, and Susan Sontag. Most prominent are several works by American writer Marguerite Young, including materials regarding her epic biography Harp Song for a Radical: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs. Ruas edited the unfinished manuscript after Young fell ill and could no longer continue writing the third part. The biography was posthumously published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1999. Several draft versions are present, including a copy of Young's 1742-page original draft, Ruas's working editorial draft, and his edited typescript of Part I with a group of unedited cut pages following it. A spiral notebook, containing Young's manuscript draft of a section of the book on Allan Pinkerton, along with some handwritten notes Young made on diner checks, are also included. In the last few years of her life, when she was very sick, Marguerite Young abandoned nonfiction and returned to writing poetry. Present here are Ruas's set of photocopied typescript and manuscript drafts of Young's last poems, most of which remain unpublished, Young's guide sheet for an unrealized dramatization of her earlier book Angel in the Forest, and a carbon copy of the original typescript of the first two chapters of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, with handwritten corrections by Young, that the author inscribed and gifted to Ruas. Also of note is a typescript of an early book of collected poems by Susan Howe, Ruas's friend and poetry co-host at WBAI-FM. There are also several commercially available CDs of music and poetry recordings that Ruas collected.

Also present are materials that Charles Ruas kept tucked inside of books given to him by writers he worked with as an interviewer, editor, and book reviewer. These materials include correspondence from writers and their publicists and assistants, Ruas's handwritten scripts and questions for interviews on WPS1 Art Radio, book publicity materials, and photographs of Anaïs Nin and William S. Burroughs taken at the WBAI-FM studio. While most correspondence is addressed to Ruas, some are letters addressed to his associates, Susan Howe and Rob Wynne. Most correspondence is brief and regards logistical details of author interviews and book reviews. Exceptions include a significant group of letters from Anaïs Nin to Rob Wynne, from the mid 1970s, and a strange, lengthy letter from writer Laura Riding Jackson to poet Susan Howe, regarding her distress over a potential interview. Individual letters from John Ashbery and Andy Warhol are also present. Materials removed from inscribed books are filed with photocopies of the inscribed pages. Selected first editions and inscribed books from Charles Ruas's library are held in the Rare Books Collection.

While several photographs that were originally kept with related manuscripts and ephemera are present here, photographs of many of the authors and artists listed here can be found in the Photographs file group.