The papers of Stanley Edgar Hyman (1919-1970) span the years 1932-1978, with the bulk of the material dated from 1938 to Hyman's death in 1970. An innovative and prominent literary critic, Hyman sought to redefine the criteria by which the standards of his craft were judged and, by so doing, to create a new critical sensibility. Noted for his incisive and witty style, Hyman argued persuasively for the creation of a new critical methodology with the publication of his first book, The Armed Vision. The Literary File contains manuscript drafts, notes, outlines, proofs, and reviews for this and many other books by Hyman, as well as for the articles and book reviews he wrote for a variety of periodicals, including the New Leader, the New Masses, the New Republic, and the New Yorker.

Although widely recognized for his achievements as a book reviewer and critic, Hyman was also a highly-respected and popular teacher at Bennington College, where for many years he taught classes in language and literature and the history of myth and ritual. The collection contains correspondence from Hyman's colleagues and students at Bennington. Notes and drafts of Hyman's classroom lectures and files documenting his contributions to faculty life at Bennington are located, respectively, in the Literary File and the Subject File. While Hyman's letters to editors, publishers, scholars, and writers outline many of the ideas and theories central to his view of contemporary literary criticism, those to his family and friends suggest his brash and lively nature and reflect the personal fondness his friends and associates felt for him.

The Family Papers contain an important group of letters written to Hyman by his wife, the American short-story writer Shirley Jackson, whose most famous story, The Lottery, is considered a classic of its genre. The letters, begun while Jackson was a classmate of Hyman's at Syracuse University and continued through the early years of their marriage, portray the growing interdependence of the couple and suggest the degree to which they influenced each other's work. A complementary set of letters written to Jackson from Hyman during the same time period, 1938-1942, is available in the Shirley Jackson Papers which are also located in the Manuscript Division. Read together, these letters reflect the dynamic chemistry that combined to produce one of the more unconventional marriages in American letters.

While still a student at Syracuse University, Hyman was introduced to the critic and philosopher, Kenneth Burke, who became Hyman's mentor and lifelong friend. A collection of letters written by Burke to Hyman over a thirty-year period forms the single largest and most significant file in the Correspondence series. The letters chart the intellectual give and take of their relationship, as Burke explores the world of books and ideas, examining and criticizing selected examples of Hyman's writings, while defending his own speculations on the nature of literature and scholarly criticism. In addition to the letters he sent, Burke also forwarded occasional copies of drafts and working notes to Hyman for his review, providing the researcher with original sources of Burke's writings.

At Burke's recommendation, Hyman first accepted a position at Bennington College in 1945. In addition to related material in the Subject File, the Correspondence series contains letters addressed to Hyman from fellow instructors and colleagues at Bennington, including those of writer Bernard Malamud and poet Howard Nemerov. The latter was a close friend of Hyman's, and although his letters are of a personal nature, typescript copies of his poetry are also included in his file. Of equal importance is the correspondence file of Ralph Ellison. Although many of Ellison's letters highlight personal and social topics, many more contain references to his own writings and critical responses to Hyman's essays on African-American literature and culture. Other scholars and writers whose correspondence is worthy of note include: journalists Renata Adler, Nat Hentoff, Richard Kostelanetz, and Hilton Kramer; literary critics Newton Arvin, Maud Bodkin, Malcolm Cowley, William Empson, Francis Fergusson, Frank Lentricchia, I. A. Richards, and Herbert Weisinger; novelists John Barth, Nicholas Delbanco, James T. Farrell, Thomas Pynchon, and John Updike; poets Robert Creeley, T. S. Eliot, Donald Finkel, Randall Jarrell, and Marianne Moore; and scholars Daniel Aaron, Joseph Campbell, FitzRoy Richard Somerset (Baron Raglan), Thomas A. Sebeok, and William Wasserstrom. Personal friends and associates who corresponded with Hyman and whose files also contain material of research value include Walter Bernstein, Louis Harap, Thomas Jeltrup, Walter Lehrman, Sidney and June Mirkin Mintz, Frank E. Orenstein, Louis L. Scher, Jay Williams, and Ben Zimmerman.

From May 1961 to June 1965, Hyman wrote what many critics considered to be among the best regularly published bookreview columns of the period. Despite their brevity and the constraints of publishing a biweekly review, Hyman's columns in the New Leader were characterized by their seriousness of purpose and condensed but graceful prose. The Literary File contains manuscript drafts, notes, and outlines used for these reviews, many of which were collected in Hyman's book, Standards, as well as for many of the other articles and essays he wrote. In addition to being a disciplined and dedicated reader, Hyman was also a methodical collector and organizer. These characteristics are most evident in a series of reference notes which he maintained throughout his life as a convenient fact file for use while drafting articles, lectures, and reviews. These reference notes are also located in the Literary File.