French correspondent of The New Yorker from 1925 to 1975, where she wrote her Letter from Parisunder the pen name Genêt, Flanner was a symbol of the American literary expatriate life in Paris. Many of the books in her collection are filled with hand-written notes which she later used to write her book reviews. Her collection was given to the Library in 1983 by the executor of Flanner’s late partner, Noel Haskins Murphy.