The William Makepeace Thackeray Drawings consists of the original manuscript of The Heroic Adventures of M. Boudin with autograph descriptions by Thackeray, in a handsome red binding. Together with portraits of Thackeray by Kruell (proof after Lawrence) and Hollyer (after G. B. Smith), the single volume also contains the article from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February 1891, in which the drawings were first published, with comment by Anne Thackeray Ritchie and Gordon N. Ray. Undated, the large quarto volume is bound in full red morocco with elaborate gilt spine and covers as well as gilt edges.

Created for the wife of Thackeray's friend Robert Bell, the twelve pen and ink drawings (the first seven embellished in watercolor) depict the comic adventures of M. Boudin, a Boulogne fisherman, who is captured by Nelson after sinking a British fleet of 33 vessels, only to meet his doom with Napoleon at Waterloo.

In celebration of the 80th birthday of Syracuse University Chancellor Emeritus William P. Tolley, Syracuse University Library Associates published a facsimile edition of the original manuscript in 1980, a copy of which is contained in the box with the originals.