After O'Shaughnessy's death in 1881, his cousin and literary executor Alfred W. Newport Deacon (1847-1915) seems to have added to the collection letters addressed to himself (some concerning O'Shaughnessy, some not), and 3 letters by O'Shaughnessy. He annotated some of the letters and some of the album sheets with identifications.

John Westland Marston (1819-1890) was a blank-verse dramatist moving in London literary circles. His daughter Eleanor Marston (died 1879) appears to have kept an album of letters received by Marston from notable English, French, and American authors and actors. In 1873 Eleanor married A.W.E. O'Shaughnessy, who worked for the British Museum of Natural History as a herpetologist under the protection of the novelist Bulwer-Lytton (1st Baron Lytton): O'Shaughnessy's maternal aunt was Lytton's mistress. O'Shaughnessy moved in London and Parisian literary and artistic circles, and Eleanor seems to have added his incoming correspondence to her album.

By the time KU Libraries' Special Collections Department acquired the contents of the album from Maggs in 1956, it had been disbound and the letters cut out (many still show signs of having been mounted on coloured paper). Most annotations were lost in this process; and the album may have contained more (or less) than the present collection.

Around 1962, Special Collections bought and added 1 letter by O'Shaughnessy. In 1963, O'Shaughnessy's literary texts were added from the O'Hegarty acquisition; in 1989, 4 letters and a contract by O'Shaughnessy were added from the Paden acquisition.