Researching Personal Narratives at NYPL: Format

There are a handful of synonyms and adjacent terms to keep in mind which fall under the overarching and somewhat protean genre of "personal narratives." Like:

• Memoir
• Diary
• Reminiscences
• First-person account
• Autobiography
• Journal
• Recollections
• Reflections
• Confessions
• Narratives (for example, "sea narrative," or "early narratives")

In addition, textual first-person accounts might appear in alternate formats:

• Correspondence
• Newspapers and periodicals (for example, published interviews)
• Transcriptions of oral histories

Collections of unpublished, primary source materials are often chockful of items that qualify as personal narratives. Such manuscript materials are typically found in the personal papers of an individual. Access is typically more of a multistep process because the collections are not digitized, require advanced appointments, and are located solely in one location (versus copies of secondary sources). Any chance of publication for wider audiences is low because of rights issues or terms of the original accession. Collections are also often too large for any complete knowledge by staff archivists of each item in each box, and only until diligent researchers access the folders one-by-one are the full contents determined.

For our purposes, archival materials are outside the scope of this guide; see the research guide Getting Started with Archives.