The New York Public Library's curious collection of authors' personal items

From Gareth Smit's article in The New Yorker:

The Berg Collections roughly two thousand linear feet of manuscripts and archival materials were donated to the library, in 1940, by two brothers, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg. The brothers, both doctors who lived on the Upper East Side, were avid collectors of English and American literatureand of literary paraphernalia.

The library categorizes these items as Realiaobjects from everyday life. The Berg Collection includes Charlotte Bronts writing desk, with a lock of her hair inside; trinkets belonging to Jack Kerouac, including his harmonicas, and a card upon which he wrote blood in his own blood; typewriters belonging to S. J. Perelman and Paul Metcalf; Mark Twains pen and wire-rimmed glasses; Vladimir Nabokovs butterfly drawings; and the death masks of the poets James Merrill and E. E. Cummings.

Although the Berg Collection is intended to cater to researchers, curators are always keeping an eye out for items that complement the existing archive. Virginia Woolfs cane may be of little interest to scholars, but its an important artifact that was likely the last thing she used before her death.