This work serves as a comprehensive reconstruction and inventory of the extensive personal library amassed by the 18th-century writer and collector Horace Walpole. The authors, Allen Tracy Hazen and W. S. Lewis, utilize their expertise in 18th-century literature and Walpole's own correspondence to catalog the contents of Strawberry Hill. By cross-referencing auction records, personal notes, and surviving volumes, the text provides a definitive record of the intellectual environment that shaped one of the most significant private collections of the Enlightenment era.

Scholars and bibliophiles regard this work as a foundational reference for understanding the intellectual life of Horace Walpole. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which is tailored specifically for researchers and historians of the period.