This series contains Lalley's personal correspondence and his work-related correspondence up until his retirement from the Washington Post in 1961. The correspondence from his editorship (l963-80) of Modern Age is in Series 3.

Most of Lalley's close personal friends earned their livings by writing and were frequent letter writers as well. Childhood friends with whom Lalley corresponded regularly, with the dates of their letters, were Albert Hoskins (l933-54), William McGarry (l922-49), Felix M. Morley (l9l7-78), Warner Olivier (l927-69), and Eugene M. Pharo (l9l7-44). McGarry, Morley, Olivier, and Pharo were also newspapermen, and their letters allude to this work. Other newspaper writers who wrote to Lalley were Angele de T. Gingras, Rex Lampman, Sam F. Perkins, and H.C. Thompson.

Much of the correspondence in this series deals with Lalley's work with the Washington Post as book review editor and editorial writer. When the Post ran a book page (l937-[l943]), Lalley solicited reviews and articles from many authors. Frequent contributors to this page were John Tate Appleby, Katherine de Montalant Hoskins, and Evelyn Page. Letters from these three describe this work in detail. There is less material on the business side of the book review page, but filed under the Washington Post in this series are memos and correspondence on soliciting advertisements and general planning for the book page during the period l938-40s. Some of the letters filed under book publishers' names are requests for reviews of their books to appear in the Post.

Lalley's literary writings for the Post, the New Yorker, Human Events, and other publications elicited letters from writers and poets. Among those who wrote to Lalley about their work were John Tate Appleby, Marion Crawford, Thomas Crawford, Elsie S. Duncan, Harold C. Gardiner, Edith Louise Hough, Muna Lee, and poets Sister Adelaide, Carmela Hibben, Katherine deM. Hoskins, Lilith Lorraine, and Glen Levin Swiggett.

Lalley was retained by several authors to help write or revise their books. There is correspondence with William Franklin Sands on Our Jungle Diplomacy, Lowell Mason on The Bull on the Bench, and Constantine Brown on The Coming Whirlwind.

Lalley's editorial writing for the Washington Post often evoked comment from the public, and much of the correspondence in this series is reaction (largely favorable) to Lalley editorials. One notable exception is two letters (1952) from Brig. Gen. Telford Taylor. Taylor criticized a Lalley editorial on the Katyn massacre of Polish prisoners in l94l. Taylor's detailed letters refute many points Lalley made about the Nuremburg Tribunal investigation.

In this series is a group of letters concerning the Spanish Civil War. Many written in 1937 deal with the Catholic Church's role in the war. In l938 began a lengthy correspondence between Joseph F. Thorning and Post editor Felix Morley. Dr. Thorning was chairman of the Department of Social Sciences at Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Md. who had recently returned from Spain. He was more concerned with the "Soviet penetration" than with Nazi and Italian intervention, and his letters and articles in the Post argue his case. These letters are filed with Felix Morley's letters in this series.

Lalley's editorial work reflected his conservative philosophy, and some of his correspondence beginning in the mid-l940s is with fellow conservatives such as publishers William T. Couch, Devin Garrity, Russell Kirk, Felix Morley, and Henry Regnery. There are also letters from William S. Schlamm and Otto von Simson concerning conservative journals they were involved in starting. The ideas in this correspondence are carried on in Lalley's Modern Age correspondence in Series 3.