Blank book measuring 7 × 4¾ × 1 inches (18 × 12 × 3 cm) and containing 146 leaves of ledger paper bound in white leather. The endpapers at the front and back of the volume consist of marbled paper. There are three front flyleaves and two back flyleaves. The flyleaf closest to the text block on both ends is pasted to the adjacent ledger leaf; the ledger page that remained exposed became part of the text block. initially titled the book “James Burgess Book | September 1rst. 1841” on the verso of the first flyleaf. On the verso of the second leaf of the text block, he added a second title: “James Burgess Minister of the Gospel. | Second Book of record containing the history | of his life October 20th | 1841”.

In the front of the book, made miscellaneous notes on the flyleaves at unknown times. He inscribed a poem and additional notes in the first three pages of the front text block. Beginning on the fourth page of the text block, Burgess inscribed journal entries dated between 20 October 1841 and 10 December 1848 combined with intermittent retrospective summaries. He inscribed additional miscellaneous notes on the back flyleaves. On the last five pages of the text block at the end of the book—called here his “notebook”—he wrote additional notes and a poem. At an unknown time, Burgess turned the book upside down and inscribed on pages [6]–[24] accounts of discourses JS delivered between April 1843 and March 1844. Burgess initially wrote the discourse accounts in graphite. For the discourses inscribed on pages [6]–[12], Burgess subsequently retraced the characters with ink and then erased the graphite. The tightness of the letterspacing in the discourse accounts is comparable to that of the journal, suggesting that Burgess inscribed the accounts sometime in the 1840s.

The book remained in the possession of the Burgess family into the early twentieth century, as evidenced by genealogical notes made in unidentified handwriting on the flyleaves. Archival labels at the back of the book, the front cover, and the spine indicate that the book was acquired by the Church Historian’s Office (now CHL) by the mid-twentieth century.