The Berg Collection portrait file is a rich and diverse collection of prints and photographs featuring outstanding authors such as Virginia Woolf, Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Walt Whitman. The original collection assembled by Henry W. and Albert A. Berg, which came to NYPL early in the 1940s, included author-related portraits. The Berg Collection has continued to acquire author-related portraits, whether as accompaniments to manuscript and book acquisitions or as independent acquisitions in themselves.