Mehmed Ârif Bey (1873-1919) was a late Ottoman intellectual who served as a professor of Ottoman History at the Darülfünun and also worked at the Bureau of Compilation and Translation under the Ministry of Education. This work, prepared for publication by compiling his writings, consists of ten articles that Mehmed Ârif Bey penned in the Journal of the Ottoman History Commission between 1326-1331 [1910-1915]. The first article, which gives the work its title, "An Unrecorded Year of Ottoman History (1729)," was serialized in four issues of the Journal of the Ottoman History Commission between 1326-1328 (1910-1912) under the title "The Incident of the Year 1142 Not Recorded in the Chronicles of the Ottoman State." At the beginning of this article, which sheds light on many historical facts, Mehmed Ârif Bey provided an explanation regarding the institution of the court historian (vak’anüvis), which facilitated history writing in the Ottoman Empire, and addressed the issue of why the events of the Hijri year 1142 (1729) were not recorded. According to his findings, the events of the year 1142 (1729) were not recorded due to a historical void that occurred during the transition period between court historian Çelebi-zâde İsmail Âsım Efendi and court historian Sâmî Bey. He states that Çelebi-zâde recorded events up to the year 1141 (1728), but Sâmî Bey, who subsequently took over the position of court historian, began recording events from the year 1143 (1730), and that the events of 1142 (1729) were left unrecorded because he did not continue from where Çelebi-zâde left off; he attributes this omission to both the political turmoil of the period and Sâmî Bey's personal conduct. Discovering this one-year gap in historical records approximately 180 years later, Mehmed Ârif Bey completed this missing record with his serialized articles and documented the events of 1729.

The other articles by Mehmed Ârif Bey in this book are titled: On the Second Vienna Campaign, Humbaracıbaşı Ahmed Pasha (Bonneval), A Document Regarding the War with Russia in 1244 and 1245 (1828-1829), From Political and Historical Documents: A Document on the Cession of Belgrade Fortress to the Serbs, From Anatolian History: The Hamidids, A Conversation Between Sultan Selim Khan I and Ibn Kemal Regarding the City of Edirne, The Conquest of Minorca, Mehmed Ârifî Pasha, An Appendix to Abdurrahman Şeref's Article on Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha: Şecâatnâme.