The papers consist of professional and personal files of the American publisher and author William Jovanovich (1920-2001), largely spanning his time as president and chief executive officer of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich from 1954 through 1991. The majority of materials consist of author and publisher files, including correspondence with Svetlana Alliluyeva, Hannah Arendt, Matija Bećković, Sylvia Beach, Arthur C. Clarke, Edward Dahlberg, Milovan Djilas, e. e. cummings, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, Hiram Haydn, Helen Hayes, Irving Howe, Jerzy Kosiński, Anita Loos, Marshall McLuhan, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Lewis Mumford, V. S. Pritchett, Erich Maria Remarque, Richard Rovere, Carl Sandburg, William Saroyan, Vasilēs Vasilikos, Andy Warhol, Leonard Woolf, and other notable authors, as well as publishers including Helen Wolff and Cass Canfield. A significant author file on Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh includes correspondence with and regarding the Lindberghs, corrected typescripts and proofs, research materials and writings by potential Lindbergh biographers, photographs, and other materials related to their books with the publisher. Much of the Lindbergh materials regard Charles Lindbergh's posthumously published Autobiography of Values, which Jovanovich personally edited. Jovanovich's working files, manuscripts, and proofs for his own novels and nonfiction works are also present, as are personal and professional correspondence, family memorabilia, and files pertaining to his speeches, travels, interviews, publishing industry activities, honorary degrees and awards, and personal interests, particularly in Yugoslav authors.