The papers of Janet Flanner (1892-1978) and Natalia Danesi Murray (1901-1994) span the years 1940-1984 with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1944-1975. The collection includes correspondence, writing notes, drafts, corrected galleys, and off prints, review clippings, financial records, photographs, and printed material. The papers are organized in two series: Janet Flanner Papers and Natalia Danesi Murray Papers.

Janet Flanner's papers largely concern the last decade of her writing career. Her books were compiled from essays, selected and edited by William Shawn and Irving Drutman. Files are scant for volumes one and two (1965, 1971), and (1975). Files for (1972) are more comprehensive and include corrected galleys and publicity files. Flanner's original essays for during this period look back to her early literary efforts and life among the writers, publishers, artists, and personalities on the Left Bank in Paris during the interwar years, figures such as Colette, Pablo Picasso, Margaret Anderson, Sylvia Beach, Gertrude Stein, and Alice B. Toklas. A notable exception is the small file of radio scripts dated 1945 and written in Rome as Flanner reported to an American audience on the war's end and aftermath in Europe.

Natalia Danesi Murray's papers concern her relationship with Janet Flanner. Their correspondence, 1944-1977, is almost entirely composed of Flanner's letters to Murray, although copies of a few of Murray's letters to Flanner are included. Flanner's letters to Murray provide a detailed and personal record of those thirty years, a contrast to the detached reporting in the "Letters" by Gênet, Flanner's pseudonym/persona. The letters trace the course of Flanner's health and emotions and are full of observations on friends, family, acquaintances, and comments about her writing assignments, entertainments, politics, and current news events.

Murray published about half of Flanner's letters in (1985). She selected and edited the letters and wrote introductions, commentaries, and footnotes. Documentation for includes annotated exact copies and transcripts of the letters, early and revised drafts of the text, and notes, with lists of letters considered for publication. A final chapter by Murray, not published in the book, concerns the three years they lived together in New York until Flanner's death in 1978.

Murray had a memorial service for Flanner, received condolence letters and collected a file of obituaries which are preserved in the Flanner file. On occasion, Murray acted as literary representative for Flanner, which accounts for a small file of publicity records. After Flanner's death, Murray arranged for the publication in 1979 of records of which are in Murray's Flanner file.

Murray's papers also include miscellaneous correspondence, some in Italian and French, from family, associates, and friends such as Kay Boyle and Carson McCullers. The McCullers file includes a typescript of her children's poems, eventually published in the book (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964) and other poetry, 1951 and undated. Murray's correspondence with Noel Haskins Murphy concerns their shared responsibility in attending to the aging Flanner's health and well being.