Events in David Sedaris’s early creative life might be dated with the abbreviation “B.C.” — Before Crumpet.

On Dec. 22, 1992, he was an obscure performance artist and aspiring writer supporting himself with odd jobs. Then NPR aired his reading of “SantaLand Diaries,” the sardonic account of his stint as a Macy’s Christmas elf named Crumpet that turned him into a seemingly instant literary star.

Mr. Sedaris has always mined his past for his stories, but in the past few years he has been in an even more retrospective mood. Last year he published “Theft By Finding,” a volume of excerpts from the voluminous diary he has kept since 1977, along with a “visual compendium” reproducing pages of the original books, in all their often-handwritten, wildly collaged glory.

Now Mr. Sedaris has sold his archive to the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale, where his manuscripts, drafts, notebooks and other scraps will be part of the library’s rich holdings relating to social satire from the likes of Garry Trudeau, Saul Steinberg, David Rakoff and Mark Twain.