The correspondence between William Wallace and Ottilie McLaren, covers, with some small gaps, the period of their secret engagement between 1896 and 1902. Wallace was by then precariously established as a composer and professional musician, and writes extensively on musical matters, his relations with Granville Bantock and A C Mackenzie, his attitudes to Wagner, Richard Strauss, and some of his less serious British contemporaries such as German and Sullivan, and generally on the difficulties faced by young British composers. Ottilie was studying sculpture, and writes of her work in Edinburgh, and subsequently of her studies in Paris under Rodin, one of whose favourite pupils she became. The correspondence also contains much on general matters of the day, notably the Dreyfus Case and the Boer War.

Many of the earlier letters have substantial passages blocked out.