This version of the ‘Autobiography’, the same as that found in MS.3462 (folios 1-371), contains also the opening pages which are missing in that manuscript. Included (as far as folio 34 verso) are numerous excerpts from Thomas Carlyle's 'Recollections', some of which were printed for the first time, perhaps from MS.3463, in the form of footnotes in the 1910 edition of the ‘Autobiography’. Thereafter, apart from minor variations in arrangement and the omission of several paragraphs, the text is that of the 1860 and 1910 editions. At folios 404-444, however, is found a journal of a tour to the north of Scotland made by Carlyle in 1765. This does not appear in the printed editions, which indicate only the fact that Carlyle made the tour.

On the front board is a note by John Lee, Principal of Edinburgh University, while folio 1 consists of a letter, 1819, by Carlyle Bell, Writer to the Signet, to Lee, with a copy of a letter from a Dr Brown to Carlyle Bell; both of these relate to a proposal to publish material relating to Alexander Carlyle. Some supplementary notes by John Lee are to be found on folio 7.