This book includes contributions from Edmund Gosse; J. M. Barrie; Henry James; George Moore; T. E. Lawrence; and Aldous Huxley (all letters); and short essays by Raymond Mortimer; David Cecil; Anthony Powell; Edna O'Brien; Angus Wilson; Roy Fuller; David Wright; Sean O'Faolain; Michael Burn; Enoch Powell; Noel Annan; George Mikes; George D. Painter; D. J. Enright; John Julius Norwich; Miles Kington; J. W. Lambert; John Weightman; A. E. Ellis; Bruce Berlind; Dorothy M. Partington; Stanley Gillam; Douglas Matthews; Michael Higgins; Oliver Stallybrass; Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright; Antony Farrell; Marcel Troulay; and Colin Wilson. The cover was by Nicolas Bentley, and other illustrations include drawings by Edward Ardizzone and Michael Lasserson.