Library Overview

The Fales Library and Special Collections is the primary repository for special collections materials at New York University (NYU). Its holdings include the Fales Collection of English and American Literature, which documents developments in prose fiction from 1740 to the present; the Downtown Collection, which documents the New York City Downtown art scene from the early 1970s through the 1990s; and the Food and Cookery Collection, which documents American food history with a focus on New York City. The Fales Collection began in 1908 as the private library of DeCoursey Fales, a banker and lawyer. In 1957, Fales donated nearly 50,000 volumes to NYU. The other special collections at the university were brought together in the Fales Library, and the collection now houses more than 200,000 printed volumes, 10,000 linear feet of archival materials, and extensive holdings of media. Other important collections include the Alfred C. Berol Collection of Lewis Carroll, the Richard Maass Collection of Westchester County and New York State, and the personal papers of E. L. Doctorow, Betty Fussell, Pete Hamill, Marion Nestle, Erich Maria Remarque, and Elizabeth Robins.

New York University
Fales Library and Special Collections
70 Washington Square South, Third Floor
New York, New York 10012
http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/fales/
(212) 998-2596 (t)
(212) 995-3835 (f)