Call Number:

C0236

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 7 boxes
• 3.50 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); William M. Sloane Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1931-1979 (inclusive)

Creator:

Sloane, William, 1906-1974

Form:

Correspondence., Manuscripts., and Memorabilia.

Abstract:

Consists primarily of correspondence of William M. Sloane during his publishing and editorial career, which is documented in several publishing files. These include papers of the Association of American University Presses when Sloane served as vice-president and president (1966, 1969-70); the Council on Books in Wartime; the Visiting Committee of American Book Publishers; and the publishing houses of Henry Holt and Company (1938-46) and William Sloane Associates (1946-52).

William M. Sloane was a book publisher and president of the Association of American University Presses. Born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1906, he attended The Hill School and graduated from Princeton University in 1929. He was an editor at Longmans, Green & Co.; manager of the Fitzgerald Publishing Company, associate editor at Farrar & Rinehart; and vice president of Henry Holt & Company before founding his own publishing house, William Sloane Associates, Inc., in 1946. In 1952, he resigned and became editorial director of Funk & Wagnall's Company and then director of Rutgers University Press. Sloane then served as vice president and then president of the Association of American University Presses. He died in 1974.

1929-1931 Editor at Longmans, Green & company 1932-1937 Manager of Fitzgerald Publishing Company 1937-1938 Associate editor at Farrar & Rinehart 1938-1946 Employed at Henry Holt & Company 1943-1944 Member of Council on Books in Wartime 1944 Trip to China 1943-1946 Vice-President of Henry Holt & Company 1946 Founded own publishing house: William Sloane Associates, Inc. 1948 Member of Visiting Committee of American Publishers sent by the U. S. Military to re-establish German publishing 1952 Resigned from William Sloane Associates, Inc. 1952 Editorial director of Funk & Wagnall's Company 1955 Director of Rutgers University Press 1966 Vice-President of Association of American University Presses 1969-1970 President of Association of American University Presses until 1972 Was staff member of Bread Loaf Writers' Conference held at Middlebury College, Vermont for more than 25 years

The collection consists primarily of correspondence of Sloane (Princeton Class of 1929) during his publishing and editorial career, which is documented in several publishing files. These include papers of the Association of American University Presses when Sloane served as vice-president and president (1966, 1969-70), including letters by Alden H. Clark, executive director; the Council on Books in Wartime during Sloane's trip to China (1943-44); the Visiting Committee of American Book Publishers that published the report German Book Publishing after World War II (1948); and the publishing houses of Henry Holt and Company (1938-46) and William Sloane Associates (1946-52). There is a significant amount of correspondence between Sloane and Lambert Davis of the University of North Carolina Press and Weldon A. Kefauver of the Ohio State University Press, as well as explanatory letters, written by Sloane at the time of Princeton University's acquisition of these files.

Additions to the papers include general correspondence with Dodd, Mead & Company, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Ernest K. Gann, J. B. Rhine, Rutgers University Press, William Sloane Associates, Richard Wormser, and others; correspondence related to Sloane's novels and science fiction anthologies; fan mail; manuscripts of his novel Edge of Running Water (1939), a report "To Chungking," and articles, speeches, and plays; also correspondence and memorabilia of Sloane's trips, for book publishing concerns, to China in 1943 and Germany and Austria in 1948.