The Indiana Historical Society was kind enough some years back to thoroughly catalogue the contents of its Tarkington Collection, and to publish a directory to that collection online.  The attached note describing the collection includes some intriguing biographical tidbits you won’t find elsewhere.  Here’s some of what’s included:

Much of the family correspondence is with Tarkington’s nephew Donald Jameson and his wife and daughters.  Included in this section is a letter from Tarkington’s daughter Laurel to her stepmother, and a poem found in Tarkington’s desk at the time of Laurel’s death.  …  Because of Tarkington’s failing eyesight most of his correspondence in his later years is written in pencil on large yellow sheets which were apparently easier for him to see. Many of these letters are to the Jameson’s, 1935–45 and are stored with the oversized manuscripts.  Included are letters to Donald and Margaret’s daughter Patty and her husband and newborn son and letters to Patty’s sister Mig, 1940–45, giving some avuncular advice during Mig’s first marriage and divorce.

General correspondence primarily deals with Tarkington’s literary matters.  Included is a 1913 letter to Paul Eldredge about Penrod as a representative boy.  A 1915 letter to H. G. Jacobs of the Brooklyn Eagle goes into some detail about the background of The Turmoil.  A 1944 letter to Abraham Feldman gives Tarkington’s memories of David Graham Phillips (whom Feldman tactlessly describes to Tarkington as Indiana’s greatest novelist).  There is also a John T. McCutcheon cartoon showing Tarkington on the bench at an imaginary baseball game.

Several of the letters relate to Tarkington’s interest in art, both as a collector and as a museum board member.  These include a letter to Mrs. Benjamin D. Hitz, correspondence with Earle J. Bernheimer, and letters to Mr. Silberman an art dealer from whom Tarkington bought many of the paintings he collected, and on whom he modeled his stories about Rumbin’s Gallery.  A letter to Garvin Brown relates an incident during his early years of acting for the Dramatic Club.

A letter to Indianapolis Symphony conductor Fabien Sevitzky refers to a joint project to make an opera out of Kipling’s Just So Stories (!).