Norman Mailer, Harvard Class of 1943, shut his alma mater out of the contest for his literary remains. The Mailer papers went to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which opened them to the public in January.

But Harvard just made its own score in the Mailer-memorabilia market. The university has spent an undisclosed sum to acquire the papers of Carole Mallory, the writer’s mistress from 1983 until the early 1990s, according to a report in The New York Observer (“Mailer Mistress Makes a Move”) and an item in the New York Post’s gossip column, Page Six (“Mailer’s Lust Goes to Harvard”).

“Mailer is a Harvard graduate, and I felt it was important to have him represented in some way in the collections here,” Leslie Morris, the Harvard curator who handled the deal, told the Observer.

The collection includes letters, photographs, and transcriptions of interviews Ms. Mallory conducted with the writer, whom she credits with teaching her how to write.

Portions are — to use Ms. Mallory’s word — “steamy.” For instance, the archive contains two unpublished manuscripts — one a memoir, one a novel — that include long descriptions (20 or 50 pages, according to the Post and the Observer, respectively) of the couple’s sexual encounters.

“Norman was a real man, and he knew what he was doing,” Ms. Mallory told Page Six. —Jennifer Howard