Scope and content:

Correspondence in the collection covers the years 1926-1981, with the bulk falling in the years after 1950. Major correspondents include family members, attorneys, agents, and publishers. Also included are notable literary, stage and film figures such as Charley Chaplin and Oona O'Neill, John Houseman, Darryl F. Zanuck, George Jean Nathan, Garson Kanin, and composers Joaquin Rodrigo and Alan Hovhaness. From the 1950s on, Saroyan kept carbon copies of most of his correspondence, which he attached to letters incoming from others. Approximately one quarter of all correspondence is from William Saroyan himself. Saroyan occasionally used the pseudonym "Aram Garoghlanian" for magazine subscriptions and it may appear on other correspondence as well.

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