The papers contain little relating to Dent's early life, his family or his work as a music professor. The bulk of the collection concerns his work as a translator of operas and as a music journalist and author. There are a small body of papers relating to his involvement with Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden opera houses, and to his presidency of the International Music Research Society and the International Society for Contemporary Music. Among Dent's own research papers are his transcripts of Ferruccio Busoni's correspondence gathered in preparation for 'Ferruccio Busoni: a biography' by Dent, published in 1933.

Arrangement: The Dent collection had been worked on by several library staff members before the current catalogue was begun. The papers were held in several numbered boxes arranged by either the format of the documents they contained (e.g. photographs, typescripts) or by the content of the documents (e.g. translations). The divisions between categories was not always clear, for example typescript translations, which appeared in both 'Translations' and 'Typescripts'. In addition two boxes of material were labelled ‘Found loose on shelf’. Material throughout the collection has been rearranged from the order found; the box lists showing the contents of each box before the rearrangement are available in digital form in the Archive Centre.
The three boxes of research on Busoni appeared to be quite distinct from the rest of the collection (see EJD/2/1), and have therefore been kept together in one section of the catalogue. Thus letters from the same author may appear in the Busoni section of the catalogue and in the main correspondence series; press cuttings about Dent’s biography of Busoni are found in the Busoni section and not with the press cuttings about other books and reviews.
As part of the cataloguing process, covering letters donating papers or copies of papers to the Archive Centre but providing little additional contextual information have been removed to the Dent accessions file in the Archivist's office.