Even among the riches contained within the Liston Papers, Henrietta Liston's Turkish journal stands out. A large quarto with a full leather tight-back binding in brown calfskin, it is a handsome volume, deco-rated with gold fillet tooling around the boards and across the spine panels, and with its title, ‘LISTON'S TRAVELS’, tooled in gold both on the front board and the spine. Within, marbled endpapers enclosea text block of cream wove paper with a ‘RUSSELL ' Co 1810’ watermark. The ink Liston used throughout was of good quality and has proved very stable, and may have been made on site at the ambassadorial palace: the Liston Papers contain a handwritten ‘Direction to make Turkish ink’ (NLS MS 5720 f. 24r: see Figure 1.4). The journal is written throughout in Liston's usually neat italic hand (see Plate 5), although the corrections and insertions found on almost every folio make some parts difficult to decipher (for an example, see Plate 6). Judging by the hand and the shade of ink, most of these revisions were carried out either at or close to the time of writing, but some, particularly in the earlier parts of the journal, are clearly Liston's later modifications. Liston often inserts an alternative word or phrase above her first thought, usually crossing out the original but sometimes leaving both to stand. Occasionally she appears to have thought better of her revisions and has cancelled these out, leaving the original text in place. Usually when deleting Liston simply strikes a word or phrase through, but in several places there is evidence of attempts at scratching out the text, sometimes to then write over it, in others to scribble through a word or phrase with a series of spirals.

The journal can be divided into two parts. The first, slightly longer half is written as a continuous narrative with no sub-headings and covers the three and a half months from the departure from London to the trip up the Bosphorus on 17 July 1812 (ff. 3r–39v). The second half (ff. 40r–73v) is composed of shorter, more episodic or diary-like entries, most beginning on a new folio. The earlier of these tend to have headings giving place (most commonly ‘Pera of Constantinople’) and full date. After initial entries for 27 July and 11 August, these are dated at roughly six-week intervals.