The collection consists of correspondence of Charles W. Tinckam with about 45 poets, authors, songwriters, or their representatives, seeking permission to use their poems in his anthology The Poets' Year, Being Pastoral Pictures of the Season. Most of the items that Tinckam requests are related to the seasons or the months of the year. Writers or publishers include William Davenport Adams, Henry Alford, William Bennett, Bradbury & Evans, Edward Capern, Chapman & Hall (regarding a piece by Robert Browning and Chapter 2 of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens), Eliza Cook, Leigh Hunt, Charles Mackay, Macmillan & Co., Edmund Ollier (the editor of The Quiver), T. Teignmouth Shore, Agnes Strickland, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and David Wingate. Included is a letter written in the hand of Emily Tennyson on behalf of Alfred Lord Tennyson, dated December 7, 1866, and on embossed letterhead with the address "Farringford, Freshwater, Isle of White," granting permission to include "The Death of the Old Year" in the anthology. There is another letter written on Tennyson's behalf, written in a different hand on Tennyson letterhead, dated December 16, 1867. In a letter dated December 6, 1866, Tinckam asks Thomas Miller for permission to include two of his poems in the anthology, which he originally titled "The Months of the Year as told by the Poets." Miller's response, written in pencil on page three of the letter, granting Tinckam permission, suggests a different title for the anthology.

Included among the letters are an undated autograph poem by an unidentified author, titled "Gems of the Months," and a receipt dated September 8, 1871, for the sum of £5, given to Frederick Warne & Co. by the publishers Messrs. Albert J. Crocker Bros. "for the purchase of the arrangement of The Poets' Year edited, selected and arranged by Charles William Tinckam."