The collection consists of manuscript notebooks, about 750 letters, and a box of miscellaneous manuscript material. Among the notebooks are two of his commonplace books, that is notebooks in which he recorded passages to be remembered or referred to, his diary of his trip to Europe, 1813-1814, with Sir Humphry Davy, a volume of drafts for chemistry lectures given in 1816-1819, and a slim volume of "Chemical notes, hints, suggestions and objects of pursuit" written in 1822. In this notebook Faraday began speculating about the relation of magnetism and electricity nine years before he discovered electromagnetic induction. Correspondents include: Ampre, Arago, Samuel F. B. Morse, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Sir William Snow Harris, Alexander Herschel and men of affairs like Melbourne, Peel and Charles Dickens (who wrote to Faraday about the possibility that he might publish Faraday's lectures on the Chemical History of a Candle).