The collection consists of thirty-eight letters written by O'Connor to her author friend Ashley Brown. The letters discuss mutual friends and other authors, such as Elizabeth Bishop; Caroline Gordon and her husband, Allen Tate; Iris Murdoch; Eudora Welty; her mother, Regina Cline O'Connor, who lived with her; and Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, with whom she stayed in Connecticut in 1949. She writes about her swans and their illnesses, about her own illness and deteriorating health, about Princeton, Princeton University, and the people she knew there, and she makes references to her work, such as writing the introduction to A Good Man is Hard to Find. In a letter dated 12 Novermber 1960, she explains how the ladies of the South voted for Richard Nixon rather than John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential election campaign. Thirty of the letters are typewritten and signed by O'Connor, and eight are handwritten, particularly the later ones when she was suffering from symptoms of lupus and was in the hospital.