The series consists of documents related to Dorothy Duncan’s personal life, including a copy of Dorothy Duncan’s birth certificate, clippings of obituaries from Duncan’s death, and two personal photo albums (1930-1940). The photo albums are a mix of family photos, personal travel photos, and commercial postcards and photos documenting Canada, the United States of America, and various European countries.

The series consists of Dorothy Duncan’s personal and professional correspondence. The personal correspondence includes a significant number of letters from Duncan’s husband, Hugh MacLennan, as well as letters from family and friends. The professional correspondence is comprised of fan mail, exchanges with Duncan’s publishers, sample contracts, newsletters, and letters from other writers. Duncan’s correspondents included Stephen Leacock, Lorne Pierce, Robert J.C. Stead, Bruce Hutchinson, Gwethalyn Graham, David Walker, and C.P. Snow. This series also contains a file about graphology which is made up of reference material and several handwriting assessments by Robert H. Simmons.

The series consists of records pertaining to Duncan’s published works and art work. The series contains four scrapbooks of clippings related to each of her published books: “You Can Live in An Apartment” (1939), “Here’s to Canada!” (1941), “Bluenose: A Portrait of Nova Scotia” (1942), and “Partner in Three Worlds” (1944). Duncan’s work as a writer is also represented by publishing contracts from houses in New York and London (1940-1946), a series of photographs and captions that were used in “Here’s to Canada,” and files of newspaper and magazine clippings of articles written by and about Duncan, including a feature that she wrote about Gabrielle Roy. Duncan’s work as an artist is documented by files of clippings and contracts with art galleries. There is also a list of Duncan’s paintings included in one of the notebooks in Series 5 Notebooks and Diaries (1931-1957).

This series consists of unpublished literary works, including typescripts for two unpublished novels written by Duncan: “Beyond & Back” (c.1933) and “Innocent Lambs” (c.1935), which was dedicated to Hugh MacLennan. Both novels were written before her marriage to MacLennan. “Beyond & Back” was written under the pen name “Judith Crimm.”

This series consists of day diaries (one for each year from 1953 to 1957), one composition notebook with clippings and hand-copied poems from other authors (1931-1934), typed notes and story drafts (1933), hand-written character lists (1933), a journal with notes for novels (1950), a notebook with a loose leaf list of Duncan’s paintings (1944-1956), and one unpaginated ledger of accounts (1945-1957).