This very interesting volume includes Boswell's correspondence with a number of the friends and acquaintances he made while studying in Holland 1763-64 and on his Grand Tour 1764-1766. Among them are the philosopher Rousseau, the Corsican rebel General Pasquale Paoli, the Rev. Robert Brown, George Keith, Boswell's Italian love interest Girolama Piccolimini and his remote Dutch cousin Francis van Sommelsdyck.

Other domestic correspondents include Godfrey Bosville, Lord Chatham (William Pitt the Elder), commissioner Basil Cochrane, actor and bookseller Thomas Davies, Sir Alexander Dick, Lady Elizabeth Macfarlane, Lord Mountstuart, and Sir John Pringle.