The New York Times reported that Maya Angelou’s literary archive has been acquired by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, an extension of the New York Public Library. The collection includes approximately 343 boxes of her notes, letters, drafts, and even fan mail. The letters contain her correspondence with acclaimed authors and social rights leaders such as James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Coretta Scott King. Also included are notes for Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

“It will be the largest collection of her material,” said Howard Dodson, Executive Director of the Schomburg Center. “This is the collection that documents her literary career. This is a major, major, major addition to that body of documentation of the individual lives of writers and the worlds in which they lived.”

Angelou’s materials will join a collection that holds the personal works of John Henrik Clarke, Lorraine Hansberry, and Malcolm X. The Schomburg Collection is also home to Richard Wright’s original manuscript for Native Son.

In about eighteen months the collection will become available to researchers. Selected items will be put on exhibition.