Manuscripts, typescripts, proofs, printed items, and reprints from Anderson's lifetime and after Anderson's death in 1941. Anderson often worked on scrap paper, or on the back of business stationery, invoices, or hotel letterhead. Works often include explanatory notes by Eleanor Anderson, and many works handwritten by Sherwood Anderson in almost illegible script have Eleanor's clarification of the words pencilled in above. The order and content of works were kept intact if a note specified that Eleanor Anderson or Paul Rosenfeld worked on those documents. "AD", "ADS", "TD", and "TDS" refer to whether the document is autograph or typescript, signed or not. Quite a few items came from the Burton Emmett estate or Burton Emmett's wife Mary. Emmett was Anderson's patron, a wealthy advertising man who started collecting Anderson's works in 1927. After Emmett died in the mid 1930's, his wife continued to aid Anderson. It was thanks to Emmett's money that Anderson was able to purchase the Smyth County News and the Marion Democrat, both weekly papers, in the fall of 1927. [First announcement of purchase of the Marion Democrat Nov. 1, 1927].

"Journals" consist in large part of material appearing elsewhere in the Works series, and are in the same order that was established by Eleanor Anderson and Paul Rosenfeld. Memoir chapters are also in the same order in which they were found.

The "Letter-a-day" series was written in the year prior to Anderson's marriage to Eleanor Copenhaver, and the series was intended to be read by Eleanor after Anderson's death (see Eleanor Anderson's letter of March 25, 1943). They were written in various locales: New York, Washington D.C., Tucson, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Columbus, Marion Virginia, in transit (on trains and at sea), Paris, Amsterdam (where he spoke at the World Congress Against War), and London. The letters include their envelopes, which Eleanor annotated with subject headings. Sometimes the letters also include enclosures, such as clippings, materials relating to the World Congress Against War (August), and fan letters. At the end are fragmentary and unidentified letters, and two typescripts of all the letters combined.

For more works, see also Series 10, Scrapbooks, for scattered short printed works.