Boston College

The Stout family and John McAleer, Mr. Stout's John Burns LibraryBiographer, have donated a large number of Mr. Stout's files, records, correspondence manuscripts, and first editions to the John J. Burns Library, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA.

The Archives are well worth a visit for any fan who has a Boston opportunity -- the John Burns Library on the BC campus in Chestnut Hill is a gorgeous building, the librarians are nice and friendly, and there are some interesting and funny Stout materials, although it's a bit catch-as-catch-can. Members of the public with proper identification (drivers license, etc.) are welcome — prior notification is preferred but not necessary.

Finding Aids & Research Results
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  • Boston College Rex Stout Materials Finding Aid
    • The Rex Stout papers concern the family life, writings, and political activism of detective novelist Rex Stout, author of the Nero Wolfe series. The collection consists of artwork, booklets, carbon copies, certificates, contact prints, comic strips, correspondence, dust jackets, galley proofs, floorplans, ledgers, manuscripts, negatives, posters, radio scripts, transcripts, and typescripts.
  • Boston College Collection of John J. McAleer Papers
    • Boston College faculty member John J. McAleer's working files for three of his books on American authors: Theodore Dreiser: An Introduction and Interpretation (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968); Ralph Waldo Emerson: Days of Encounter (Little, Brown,1984); and Rex Stout: A Biography (Little, Brown, 1977). The materials on Rex Stout include extensive background materials, drafts, additional scholarly publications on Stout, two fanzines by McAleer (Rex Stout Journal and Rex Stout Newsletter), and some of Stout's own papers.
  • Boston College Collection of Rex Stout materials from Judson C. Sapp
    • The Judson C. Sapp papers and collection of Rex Stout document Sapp’s efforts to create a comprehensive collection of Stout first editions, as well as his activities as a fan and member of the Nero Wolfe literary society, the Wolfe Pack. Materials include correspondence; published materials; audiovisual records of Rex Stout's radio shows and television recordings; and ephemera.

Boston College Library links describing the collections

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library
Eleanor Roosevelt Papers

Rex and Pola Stout were ardent advocates of human rights. Rex Stout published an overtly anti-Nazi thriller anonymously in 1934, The President Vanishes. During World War II, Stout virtually stopped writing Nero Wolfe stories and rented an apartment in Manhattan to devote his time to the War Writer's Board and the radio show "Our Secret Weapon."

The Wolfe Pack visited the library in 2014. Links to copies of some of the correspondence between Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt and Rex & Pola Stout are located here: FDR Library Research scans.

Additional information regarding Stout's wartime activism is located on the Wartime Activism page.

See the FDR Library virtual research room and digital repository ("Franklin") at: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/franklin/

University of Indiana, Lilly Library, Bloomington, IN

The "United World Federalists Manuscript Collection" at the Library holds material related to the "Myth That Threatens the World" project. Oscar Hammerstein II, Rex Stout, and a number of other notables in the arts and entertainment field of post-World War II American were involved in this project for raising donations and public consciousness. Click here to search their index.

Thanks to a Wolfe Pack member, a number of items from the collection were copied and we hope to be able to put those relating to Mr. Stout online in the near future.

Further information about the collection, including their contact information, may be found at: http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/finding aids/view?doc.view=entire_text&docId=InU-Li-VAB8237.

University of North Carolina

In the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, within the Don Wharton Papers (#4261), there are a few letters from Rex Stout to journalist Don Wharton regarding the Writers' War Board. The online finding aid to this collection may be accessed via the following URL: http:///www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/w/Wharton,Don.html

Further information about the Manuscripts Department, including their contact information, may be found at: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/.

New York City Public Library

Here is a finding aid to a manuscript collection in the Public Library on 42nd Street. A search for Rex Stout at this link, http://archives.nypl.org, locates 92 collections with materials regarding Mr. Stout.