The photograph album was presented by the Oxford University Dramatic Society to A.E. Drinkwater in appreciation of his production of Thomas Hardy's The Dynasts, which was performed 10-14 February 1920 (a full dress rehearsal took place on 9 February). The album contains 29 black and white photographs including photographs of various stage scenes, two full cast photographs (one of the closing scene of the dress rehearsal and one of the cast outside the theatre) and a photograph of the formal dinner held on 14 February after the final performance. The photographs of the various stage scenes have printed captions of the scene numbers and titles pasted above or below (cut out from a copy of the printed programme), and the actors are identified with signatures or pencil annotations. The album has part of the original programme stitched between rear blanks and also contains [loose, in folder]: the copy of the programme from which the above scene numbers and titles were cut out; a printed postcard advertising the play; and a copy of the printed menu, tied with ribbon, for the OUDS dinner following the last performance, 14 February 1920. The album is gilt-ruled half morocco and has a small printed label of the photographic firm, Hills and Saunders, Oxford on the inside front cover.

The Dynasts was the first play by a living author to be staged by the OUDS having first been produced six years earlier by Harley Granville-Barker, who had originally adapted it for production at the Kingsway Theatre, London, with A.E. Drinkwater as stage manager. The stage manager for the OUDS production was the novelist and journalist Charles Morgan (1894-1958). Thomas Hardy and his wife Florence attended a performance (Hardy, then aged 80, collected his Honorary D.Litt. from the University of Oxford during his visit).