In a three-line cover letter that accompanied his last submission to the Financial Analysts Journal in May 1995, Fischer Black noted the long and satisfying association that he had had with the publication. A copy of this letter is in one of the hundreds of files that Fischer kept, which span roughly the last 25 years of his career. The files show that his work hinged on his fierce devotion to the written word; they also give us an idea of how he set about doing his research and the pleasure it gave him.