Series 5. Nonfiction Books, 1896-1962

Series Overview

Manuscripts of nonfiction books include several unpublished items. "A World Search for Democracy" (mostly complete) was prepared in the late 1930s. Also of interest are "Russia and America: An Interpretation"; "This Africa: How it Arose, Whither it Goes"; and research notes for the "Encyclopedia of the Negro" and for a study of the Black soldier in World War I, "The Black Man and the Wounded World." There are prospectuses of several books. Of those books that were published, of particular interest are several surviving handwritten chapters from "The Souls of Black Folk" and a complete typescript, with handwritten corrections, of "A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life form the Last Decade of Its First Century: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois". There are also other manuscripts of published works.