Schwarzman Building

The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature was assembled and presented to The New York Public Library in 1940 by Dr. Albert A. Berg, a famous New York surgeon and trustee of the Library, in memory of his brother, Dr. Henry W. Berg.

The original collection, confined primarily to Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, with selected highlights of English literature, numbered 3,500 items. It has grown through acquisitions and gifts to include some 35,000 printed items and 115,000 manuscripts, covering the entire range of English and American literature. Recent acquisitions include the archives of writers Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Terry Southern, and Annie Proulx.