This fonds documents the business and personal activities of the Pierce family, particularly those of James A. Pierce and James J. Pierce.

It includes general business correspondence, letters to the editor, family correspondence, school inspector correspondence, personal accounts, invoices, petitions, reports of ratepayers' meetings, recommendations for appointments of school trustees, receipts for subscriptions to the Gleaner and Northumberland Schediasma, poems, a prospectus for The Northern Star, and two scrapbooks of newspaper clippings concerning politics.

The collection consists of primary materials, such as correspondence, privately printed poems, and photographs and secondary materials gathered by Isabel St. John Bliss in preparation for her planned work on Bliss Carman. It is unknown when she acquired and began to organise her research materials.

This fonds documents the literary career of David Adams Richards. It includes personal documents; correspondence; and typescript drafts of novels, short stories, articles, plays, book reviews, and screen plays. The fonds also includes several photographs and floppy disks which primarily contain drafts of novels, screenplays, essays, and personal correspondence.