This series contains all of Breig's pre-1975 manuscripts, offprints and clippings as well as clippings of many of his later writings. The rest of the clippings and manuscripts for the 1975-1981 period are found in the CHRONOLOGICAL FILE.
The manuscripts of five books (The Devil You Say, A Halo For The Father, Life With My Mary, The Family And The Cross, and Mysteries Of Marriage) can be found in BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Included with the manuscripts are disassembled scrapbooks (now in folders) and other related materials like promotion portfolios, reviews, correspondence, and clippings. For God In Our House and My Pants When I Die the manuscripts have not survived, but there are scrapbooks, promotion portfolios, etc. As a matter of form those have been filed in this sub-series. A folder of pamphlets by Breig concludes this sub-series. Some of these pamphlets are reprints of magazine articles and some of them have been written with the support of these magazines and newspapers.
The UNPUBLISHED BOOKS AND ABANDONED WRITINGS sub-series consists of five manuscripts of unpublished books and three unfinished book manuscripts. Most of these manuscripts are undated. For the unpublished books Breig couldn't find a publishing house. He abandoned the other manuscripts because he found out that mystery novels weren't his strength or because he didn't get anywhere with his topic. Most of these manuscripts are annotated by Breig.
PLAYS contains three manuscripts (The Pump, The New Sin, Stars In The Earth). Breig wrote The Pump while he still was at Notre Dame. It was put on stage there also. His play The New Sin appeared on the stage in Pittsburgh. There are several articles about this play in the PERSONAL MATERIAL series in the Clippings about Joseph Breig folder (box 10, folder 32). The remaining play Stars In The Earth was, according to Breig, never produced.
The SHORT STORIES sub-series consists of several manuscripts and two printed short stories. In his annotation to "The End Of The Old Women" Breig wrote that among all his writings this is his favorite. The two printed stories were published while he was still a student at Notre Dame. One appeared in the Notre Dame Anthology (1927) the other one in Stepping Stones to Catholic Classics (1926). The last folder contains several undated short stories, some of which are also untitled.
The most extensive sub-series is ARTICLES, BOOK REVIEWS, AND COLUMNS IN NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES. It is divided between newspapers and magazines. Newspapers manuscripts, carbons, and clippings come first and are followed by their magazine counterparts. The newspaper part has been further divided into articles, book reviews, and columns sections. This distinction has not been made for the magazines.
The carbons of newspaper articles (3") are mostly undated. The exception is a folder with unpublished articles from the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph which is dated from around 1942. Clippings of newspaper articles embrace the years 1945-1974. Some articles can