Materials collected and created by twentieth century peace activist and author Jim Forest for his biographies of Trappist monk Thomas Merton, including correspondence, manuscripts, and photographs. The collected materials by Merton were primarily sent to Forest directly by Merton, and some include inscriptions or comments in Merton's hand. Additional collected materials, especially photographs, were collected by Forest explicitly for his Merton biographies, Thomas Merton: A Pictorial Biography (Paulist Press, 1980) and Living With Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton (Orbis Books, 1991). Forest's own papers include correspondence about Merton and about Forest's writing, as well as essays and lectures about Merton's life and work. There is also a small amount of material pertaining to Forest's biography of Dorothy Day, Love is the measure: A biography of Dorothy Day (Paulist Press, 1986).