The series contains Leon Edel's correspondence, with the majority before 1989. The correspondence ranges from personal to professional and literary, with letters from friends, acquaintances, scholars, authors, and publishers, such as Harvard University Press. Files that are significant either because of the correspondent or due to the extent of the correspondence include W. W. Norton, Anais Nin, Hannah Arendt, E. M. Forster, H. Montgomery Hyde, Geoffrey Keynes, and Allen Ginsberg. Many of the letters represent Edel's ongoing work to acquire copies of Henry James's correspondence and seek out information about the author from his contemporaries. Also includes a number of letters related to various lectures given during the 1960s and 1970s.

Series consists of ephemera related to Edel.

Series consists of correspondence with James family members, including Alice R. James, Dorothea James, Edward H. James, Henry James III, John James, Margaret Mary James (Mrs. Bruce Porter), William James III, Mary James Vaux, and Henry James Vaux.

Series consists of chiefly of notebooks of transcriptions of letters from Henry James and Edel's notes, based on thousands of James letters that Edel located and consulted during many decades of research. Bulk of transcriptions are from letters dating between 1865 and 1916. Also contains some copies of letters James family correspondence and copies of letters from James Russell Lowell to James.

Series consists of manuscripts and typescript drafts, proofs, and corrected proofs of Edel’s publications not directly related to Henry James. Publications for which drafts are found in this series include Edel’s memoirs, “Writing Lives”, “The Artist in Old Age”, “Stuff of Sleep and Dreams”, “The ‘Two Cultures’ and the Modern Imagination”, book reviews, “Shaping and Telling: The Biographer at Work”, “”Literary Biography”, a memoir of Louis Rapkine, and others. Drafts of various lectures are also included.

Series consists of clippings and off-prints about Edel and other authors including Willa Cather, Ezra Pound, and William Yeats.

Series consists of Edel's notes and research files on James Joyce. Also includes Edel's publication "Joyce: The Last Journey," with revisions and related clippings and correspondence.

Series consists of drafts, proofs, and corrected manuscripts of Edel's extensive publications on Henry James, as well as for the text of a CBC documentary series on Henry James. Also includes manuscripts, notes, and corrections for Edel's publication, "Some memories of Edith Wharton."

Series consists of assorted financial records from Edel.

Series contains correspondence related to Edel's research on James and inquiries regarding James's correspondence, arranged into alphabetical files by correspondent.