The first volume in this series of Stories and Sketches contains three works first published by Cunninghame Graham between 1895 and 1899. Notes on the District of Menteith (1895), while not a collection of stories, is included because it was the author's first book, a brief survey of the district of Scotland around his house and ancestral estate of Gartmore. In a sense, it is the physical, social and historical landscape seen from the windows of his own home. Father Archangel of Scotland (1896) is a collection of essays and sketches from the hands of both Robert and his wife Gabriela and is their only joint literary venture. The Ipane (1899) is Cunninghame Graham's first true collection of his own short stories and sketches, although he had already published a travel book, Mogreb-Al-Acksa (1898), about his experiences in Morocco. The works follow an overview of the Life and Writings of Robert B. Cunninghame Graham. Two Appendices present an essay on the author's use of foreign languages, and 'Aurora La Cuijini. A Realistic Sketch in Seville.'
The title of the volume comes from The Ipane ' - a sort of record of a dream, dreamed upon pampas and on prairies, sleeping upon a saddle under the southern stars, or galloping across the plains in the hot sun, photographed in youth upon the writer's brain - "