American literature includes first editions of Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, presentation copies of books by Herman Melville housed in a bookcase that once belonged to him; 19th-century dime novels; and first editions and letters of Emily Dickinson and Christopher Morley. The single largest collection, that of the poet Marianne Moore, encompasses her personal and literary papers, including correspondence with contemporaries such as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Elizabeth Bishop, and Langston Hughes; as well as her working library, which spans a wide range of subjects, including literature, religion, art history, natural history, and sports.

One of the greatest strengths of the Rosenbach’s library is Americana. The central topics of these collections are the European exploration and settlement of the New World and the political and military history of the United States from the first settlements through the Civil War. These histories are told in books and documents such as explorers’ and travelers’ descriptions of the land and its peoples; maps; broadsides; newspapers; scriptures, liturgical, and devotional works for the use of Christian missionaries and converts—many in Native American languages; Indian treaties and captivity narratives; and collections of legal and church documents from the Oregon Territory and colonial Mexico and Peru.