The collection consists chiefly of letters by Mahan to staff members of the New York publisher Charles Scribner's Sons. The major correspondents are Edward L. Burlingame, first editor of the firm's most successful magazine, Scribner's Magazine, to whom Mahan writes about his manuscript of "Gulf Island Waters," his article "Campaign on Lake Champlain of 1776," and galleys and proofs of other works; and Joseph Hawley Chapin, head of the firm's Art Department, to whom Mahan wrties regarding captions for book illustrations. Other material includes a letter (1897) by the writer Robert Bright Marston regarding publishing a book titled History of the Royal Navy, two letters (1908) by Mahan to Robert Mountsier declining an invitation to deliver an address at the University of Michigan due to ill health, a prospectus for a biography about Mahan by Charles Carlisle Taylor titled The Life of Admiral Mahan (1920), and a partial genealogy of Mahan's family, dated June 1977.