Nelson's manuscript is a handwritten first draft for a work on North American aboriginal belief systems, completed in June, 1823. Nelson had intended to edit and publish it at a later date. The first publication did not occur until 1988 in "The Orders of the Dreamed": George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823 where it is given a comprehensive, analytical and contextual treatment by Jennifer Brown and Robert Brightman with contributions from other authors.