The collection consists of correspondence, research files, manuscripts, journals, and ephemera created and accumulated by writer and scholar Leon Edel, who was notably the editor and biographer of Henry James as well as Edmund Wilson.

For purposes of arrangement, the Lighthall Papers have been treated as one unit. However, for purposes of descriptions, they have been divided into two parts: the W.D. Lighthall papers and the Lighthall Family papers.

The papers of W.D. Lighthall are divided into a number of different series: an Original Series, Letters and Papers, 1881-1946, and a New Series, Letters and Papers, 1865-1954. The greater part of the correspondence is to be found in these two series.

Although more than forty members of the Lighthall and allied families are represented in the collection, only those with significant bodies of papers are mentioned here, including Cybel Wilkes Lighthall, Alice M. S. Lighthall, Anne Dean Lighthall, W. F. Lighthall, and the Reverend Dr. Henry Wilkes, among others.

Fonds consists of a notebook kept by Louis Gagné of his physics and metaphysics class given by Abbot Demers at the Séminaire de Québec.

Fonds reflects L.-G. Papineau's daily work as an engineer between the years 1901 and 1905. Each volume is a daily diary, covering a year. Daily entries describe the activities of the people in his office. Most entries are technical: daily follow-ups on public works projects, including in the Montreal and Sorel harbours, Hochelaga, and on the Saint-Pierre River, meetings, finished tasks, and the absence of workers. Some are family related or comments on the news (for example, Queen Victoria's funeral on February 4th. 1901). Weather conditions and water levels are reported regularly, as it influences the pace of work on the construction sites.

The domestic finances of the Lyman family are documented by Mary Lyman's household account book, 1849, and by family accounts from 1885 to 1889. Correspondence between the Lyman and Corse families covers the period 1820-1827. The remainder of the papers consists of Corse family business letters, 1815-1853; estate documents, largely insurance policies, 1828-1856; Roswell Corse's cash book, 1842-1853; and documents concerning his buildings, 1846; a statement by Roswell Corse concerning his late brother Henry's bastards, 1853; papers of Henry Corse concerning his contribution to the construction of St. Lawrence Hall, 1845-1847; and documents connected with building supplies, 1845-1848, and R.and H. Corse and Lyman business correspondence, 1806, 1842-1846, 1852-1853.

Fonds contains bound manuscript entitled "Pictorial stories of the Professions" by Miss M. Sinclair. The manuscript is written in brown ink in a cursive script and illustrated with cuttings from contemporary comic books, some likely hand coloured.

Family correspondence chiefly from 1763 to 1820 and family history documents.

The collection consists of books, periodicals, and published ephemera related to alternative media between roughly the 1960s and 1998. The collections has a special focus on Quebec alternative, grassroots, and political publications as well as journalism trade publications and ephemera, and union and labour movement publications. Some publications are from Cuba and China, including Cuban calendars and some documents, books, and newspapers on China.

"Laure", a novel in French, is ascribed to Maria Neglet by a pencilled note in another hand.

Madame Desrivière's diaries describe social, family and economic life in Montréal and Stansbridge, Québec. The first (1843-1846) and last (1853-1854) volumes are in French, the others in English.