The 15 volumes of press cuttings in this series document Harold Edward Holt's political career, from his first attempt to enter federal politics in September 1934 and successful election to the Victorian seat of Fawkner the following year to his subsequent ministerial appointments and first year as Prime Minister.

The press cuttings cover a wide range of subjects - immigration, waterfront disputes, decimal currency, elections, Cabinet colleagues, Communism, budgets, taxation, Vietnam, overseas conferences and meetings. Most volumes also include articles on Holt's personal life, Mrs Zara Holt's fashion business and several political cartoons. A small number of letters and ephemera (invitations, leaflets etc) occur in the first volume.

The cuttings have been taken from the main Australian daily newspapers, although several regional newspapers are also represented in the earlier volumes and overseas newspapers in the later ones. Feature articles from some weekly journals are included occasionally. Volume 1 covers Holt's early public life until his marriage in 1946. Part of Volume 2 relates to his period in Opposition during the Chifley Government (to 1949). The remainder of that volume and Volumes 3- 6 cover the period when Holt was Minister for Immigration and Minister for Labour and National Service (1949-58). Volumes 7-12 relate to his period as Treasurer (1958-65) and Volumes 13-15 to his succession to Menzies and first year as Prime Minister (1965-66). At the time of the accessioning of these items, the whereabouts of similar press cutting books relating to the second year of Holt's Prime Ministerial term of office had not been established. However, in March 2008, four bound volumes covering the period 12 November 1966 to 16 December 1967 were transferred into the custody of the National Archives of Australia and are located in M4965 under control symbols [1] to [4].

Volumes 1, 14 and 15 in the series are bound. The other volumes are hard cover expandable scrapbooks. They appear to have been maintained by Holt's personal staff, with entries pasted up more or less chronologically. There is some duplication of entries. The series was transferred to archival custody in March 1968.