The Abraham Polonsky Papers consist of manuscripts of Polonsky's work and of diaries of his personal life covering his early career from 1936 to 1968. The manuscripts have been further divided into categories according to genre; NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, RADIO, THEATRE, TELEVISION, and MOTION PICTURES. This is, for the most part, a chronological arrangement, since Polonsky began his literary career writing novels and gradually entered the medium of film. Within each of the categories materials are also arranged chronologically, so that a researcher can follow the development of both the content and the style of Polonsky's work.
The NOVELS series contain typed drafts of several of Polonsky's novels, including The Discoverers (1940), The World Above (1951), and Season of Fear (1956). Manuscript drafts in his hand are found in the accompanying manuscript notebooks. The SHORT STORIES series contain typed drafts of short stories and other magazine work; manuscript drafts of some of his short stories can be found in the manuscript notebooks which are in the NOVELS series. Cinematic materials, primarily scripts and their revisions, are in the RADIO, THEATRE, TELEVISION and MOTION PICTURES series; included in this section are the screenplay and production materials for Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969). Unproduced screenplays are placed in chronological order as accurately as possible, often with the aid of diary entries where Polonsky indicated the projects he was working on. Manuscript drafts of some of these works can be found in the manuscript notebooks which are in the NOVELS series.
The DIARIES series which cover the years 1946 to 1968 reveal the man as well as the writer. In the first few years of the blacklist, for example, Polonsky began a series of works within his diaries (Volumes 18-20 in Box 5, Folder 4 and Box 10, Folder 6-7) which he referred to as the “B.A.,” or Bourgeois Agony. The subject presents his feelings of alienation and anger towards the intolerance of the period.
There are a total of 66 volumes, either diaries or manuscript notebooks, in the collection. Those volumes which are primarily literary in content are called “manuscript notebooks” and are referenced under the works they deal with. The remainder of the volumes are Polonsky's diaries. The diaries often contain information regarding Polonsky's writing as well as personal data, and this is also noted in the contents list. Notes on Willie Boy, for example, can be found in Polonsky's diaries, Volumes 63-65 (Box 14, Folder 4-6).
