The Henry Knight Dyer and Joel Francis Talbot correspondence consists of a bound book of letters written by Henry Knight Dyer and Joel Francis Talbot to their wives, Caroline Price Dyer and Ella Talbot, during a 1903 trip to Cuba and the Bahamas. Henry "Harry" Knight Dyer (1847-1911) and Joel Francis "Frank" Talbot were both executives at Dennison & Co., a paper novelties and stationery company. At the time that these letters were written, Dyer was the president of the company and Talbot was the vice president. In one of the first letters of the book, Dyer notes his and Talbot's plan to write alternating letters to their wives by way of Mrs. Brennan in the Dennison offices. Mrs. Brennan transcribed each letter and then sent the typed versions on to Caroline Price Dyer and Ella Talbot. The letters provide detailed accounts of Dyer and Talbot's experiences in Havana, Nassau, and other locations. Many of the letters also include Dyer and Talbot's observations regarding the causes and effects of the Spanish-American War, which had occurred five years before their trip in 1898.

Henry "Harry" Knight Dyer (1847-1911) grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Dyer attended public schools and began working as an errand boy for Dennison & Co. in 1859, eventually rising to be president of the company until 1904, and then organized the Home Trust Company in New York. Joel Francis "Frank" Talbot (1850-1944), who had begun as a tag cutter at the Dennison factory in 1867, worked for the firm in Chicago, and later manager in St. Louis, before rising to vice president in 1896. Talbot later served as president of the company from 1906 to 1909.

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