This folder contains correspondence and other documents relating to books sent to Edison or ordered by him. Some of the orders for 1918 pertain to books about Germany and World War I, including Joe Mitchell Chapple's We'll Stick It to the Finish, Henri Hauser's Germany's Commercial Grip on the World, and Herbert B. Swope's Inside the German Empire. Other letters deal with works by astronomer and controversial theoretical physicist Thomas J. J. See; maps from the U.S. Geological Survey for Edison's camping trip in the Great Smoky Mountains; and a French-English dictionary for translator Charles Wurth. Also included are items dealing with Edison's subscription to Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent, which later became notorious for its anti-Semitic articles. At the end of the folder is an undated list of technical journals to be kept for Edison for at least three months.

Approximately 20 percent of the documents have been selected. The unselected items include routine correspondence about orders and subscriptions; letters of thanks for books sent; unsolicited offers and publications; correspondence about non-Edison orders; and printed promotional matter. Also not selected is a 27-page list of articles on sound-related topics appearing mainly in nineteenth-century issues of scientific journals.