Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, 1990

The Mario Puzo Papers are comprised of the professional papers related to the career of the novelist and screenwriter Mario Puzo. The collection primarily contains manuscript drafts, chapter typescripts and outlines, character studies, galley proofs and handwritten notes related to the development and publication of the author's many novels, including the best-seller, "The Godfather", which Puzo also adapted for the screen.

While a few photographs... and correspondence with literary contemporaries are present in the Papers, materials relating to Puzo's personal life are, by and large, absent from the collection. The Mario Puzo Papers documents and provides a rich source of research on the subject of representations and stereotypes of Italian Americans in literature and film, fictional accounts of organized crime and the Mafia, and the history of film and screenwriting in the mid-twentieth century.

The materials relating to "The Godfather" can be found in the first series of the collection. After that, the material has been arranged into series chronologically by title. In most cases the folder arrangement within specific series reflects how the folders arrived at Dartmouth College--adhering to the archival principles of original order where possible. In some instances, folders have been arranged chronologically to facilitate increased discoverability.