In his 'Preface: Introductory and Explanatory' to this 1884 version of his Diary, Moore describes 'the "Diary or Journal" herinafter contained ... It was commenced soon after my embarcation from Dublin ... for the space of ten years in the colony, until my first return home on leave of absence. It was not continued after that time. ' (vi) The 'original letters' were first 'carefully preserved by those to whom they were sent in [Ireland]' and later 'confided to the care of a near relative in the colony, who had expressed a great desire to see them.' (vii). They were shown to Thomas Cockburn-Campbell, half owner and editor of the West Australian newspaper who requested permission from Moore to 'publish extracts from them seriatim in his paper, according as space would admit of.' (vii). Cockburn-Campbell sent Moore 'a copy of each paper which contained an extract.' Moore 'cut out those extracts and gummed them into an album ... enabl[ing] me to publish them all here afresh.' (vii)

With the Diary of Ten Years, Moore added 'a "Descriptive Vocabulary" of the language of the Aborigines...' (vii) originally published in 1842 and 'long out of print'. (ix)

J. M. R. Cameron in his introduction to The Millendon Memoirs (2006) notes that the Diary 'brought together the 1834 Extracts as they appeared originally, edited by Doyle not Campbell, and Campbell's edited excerpts for the later period.... [However] Moore deleted entries for the period from 10 April to 11 June 1836 which had appeared in the [West Australian] newspaper on 4 April 1882. (viii-ix)