The publishers of My Note Book aimed 'to provide, in as small a compass as possible, a popular Epitome of News and passing events : as also reading of a light and amusing character - to preserve memoranda of occurrences and events in such a portable form, that the whole of a year's numbers when bound together will form a compact quarto neatly-printed volume, and prove a useful and amusing chronicle of the times.' (My Note Book, 1.1 (6 December 1856): 4.)
Working towards the fulfilment of that aim, My Note Book carried extensive coverage of political activities in the Victorian Parliament. (My Note Book's first issue appeared on 10 January 1857; the Victorian Parliament was first convened on 21 November 1856.) 'Notes in "The House"' was regularly the lead article in My Note Book until mid-1858 when it was replaced by 'Notes Out of the House'. Columns reporting on the chief political protagonists of the day, including William Clark Haines, Hugh Culling Eardley Childers and Sir John O'Shanassy, were sometimes followed up by anonymously authored poems satirising the combatants. (See for instance, 'The Illustrious Stranger'.)
Another regular and prominent feature of the journal was the 'Amusements' column in which productions at the Theatre Royal and the Princess's theatre were reviewed in depth, but - again - anonymously. It has been suggested (see, for instance, 'Charles Whitehead', Empire, 4712 (20 November 1866): 2) that many of these reviews were penned by Charles Whitehead, the successful (but often inebriated) English writer who had arrived in the colony in March 1857. The reviews certainly display a comprehensive knowledge of contemporary British drama and theatrical life. As the writer of the Empire article notes, Whitehead 'had seen all the best actors during the last half century, and his personal recollections of many of them were pleasantly interwoven in his notices of the performances on the Melbourne stage'.
Sporadic references to Charles Dickens throughout My Note Book's pages also suggest the hand of Whitehead. Both Dickens and Whitehead belonged to London's Mulberry Club which also counted among its members Douglas Jerrold, Laman Blanchard and William Thackeray.
My Note Book included semi-regular columns on the fine arts; notices and extracts from new English publications (both book and journal titles); short essays and sketches on life in the Victorian colony; and summaries of items in local newspapers.
The journal also regularly ran one or more serialisations. Over a period of many months, it reproduced Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton's What Will He Do With It? This serialisation, beginning on 22 August 1857, but briefly suspended, was the subject of an altercation between My Note Book and Lytton's Melbourne agent. In an indignant article, the writer for My Note Book explains that Lytton's publisher has objected to the novel being published serially - 'as it proceeds from the author's pen' - due to possible 'pecuniary damage'. My Note Book is unrepentant. Its writer concludes: 'I am at a loss to conceive what can be the motive for this over-sensitiveness, or rather, for this extra alertness at looking after what Sir Edward's agent in Melbourne wrongly considers the pecuniary interest of his principal.' (My Note Book, (12 September 1857): 303) The serialisation resumes at the end of the column.
Other serialisations include novels and shorter works by Charles Whitehead. In some instances, the My Note Book versions are the only published sources of these works. Whitehead's Emma Latham, or, Right at Last, extending across thirty-five instalments, involves a complex web of inheritances, duplicity, kidnapping, murder, disguise and escapes. Beginning in England, the novel ends in Melbourne and includes insightful descriptions of life in the burgeoning town. It is possible that the incomplete serialisation 'Clifford Carew', purporting to be the autobiographical work of an emigrant farmer, is also by Whitehead.
My Note Book published over 200 poems by colonial writers (most of whom remain unidentified). As noted above, a significant number versified the activities of politicians and the political frictions of the day. Among the others, some contrasted life in the colony with the life left behind in England (see, for instance, 'Christmas in Australia'). Another poem recounts the reverse experience: in the delightful 'No. 1: Cooey!', the writer hears the typically Australian call echo across London's Regent Street:
I turned and saw a friend I knew,
His hand in mine masonic grew.
Myself and he, - good heart alive!
Had worked together in one drive;
Together we had made our piles;
Together travelled weary miles.
How glad I was from him to hear
That well-known cry salute my ear, Cooey, Cooey!
Born of another hemisphere, Cooey, Cooey!'
A final group of poems highlights the development of land and civic infrastructure in and around Melbourne and the other colonies in the 1850s. See, for example, 'The Whispering of the Wire', on the growth of telegraphy, and 'Speed the Rail', about the expansion of rail links. In 'A Day Dream in the Bush', the poet envisions a future metropolis with palaces, temples, viaducts, and statues.
Lastly, My Note Book provided reviews of colonial publications. These include early accounts of Henry Parkes's Murmurs of the Stream and R. H. Horne's Rebel Convicts, and the only review so far discovered of John Hurrey's poetry collection The Australian Keepsake: A Token of Love and Friendship for 1859.
