Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The New York Public Library will become the permanent home of the personal papers of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist E. Annie Proulx and Hilary Knight, the artist who drew the iconic character Eloise he co-created with author Kay Thompson.

The library has acquired Proulx’s research notes, short stories, screenplays, more than 1,060 pages of holograph diary and thousands of pages of correspondence, the institution said. The Knight acquisition includes sketches for about 60 books, personal contracts, publicity materials, Broadway posters and reviews.

The library also gets a colored-pencil sketch of the Eloise painting that hangs in The Plaza hotel in Manhattan. The precocious 6-year-old heroine of a series of books that began appearing in 1955 lived on the top floor of the Plaza with her nanny, her pug, Weenie, and her turtle, Skipperdee.

“I think it’s very interesting for people to see the process of how something is created,” said Knight, whose parents were artists, in an interview. “And Eloise is absolutely thrilled with her new residence.”

The library announced the acquisitions last night at its annual Library Lions fundraiser dinner, at which Proulx and Knight were honored. The event raised about $2.7 million for the library.

“What writer would not be honored to be in the company of Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Thoreau, Saul Bellow ... and W.H. Auden?” said Proulx, 74, who began writing fiction in her 50s. “I find a slight flavor of irony in that stories about the least-populated state should end up in an urban place.”

Three Oscars

Proulx’s papers, which include draft ideas for her first novel, “Postcards,” will be kept in the library’s Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. Proulx received the Pulitzer in 1994 for her novel “The Shipping News,” which was made into a film released in 2001. Her short story “Brokeback Mountain” was made into a movie in 2005 and won three Oscars.

The donation of Proulx’s and Knight’s works bolsters the 114-year-old library’s collection of research and circulating materials that number more than 50 million items.

Knight, who sketches for Vanity Fair, said the magazine’s editor, Graydon Carter, approached the library about housing his papers.

“I live in the country, and it’s very easy for fires to break out,” Knight said. “And the library is the best place in the world for my papers, and I grew up in New York.”

Proulx said she got to take a peek at some of the manuscripts of esteemed writers in the library’s Berg Collection before the event’s cocktail hour.

“It was a hair-raising at the back of the neck experience to see the manuscripts of so many great writers,” she said. “It was both humbling and scary.”

To contact the writer on this story: Patrick Cole in New York at pcole3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 3, 2009 12:02 EST