Son of Ebenezer and Sarah (Barnard) Fisk, Pliny Fisk was born in Shelburne, Massachusetts, on June 24, 1792. After preparing for College with Rev. Moses Halleck, Fisk entered Middlebury College in the Fall of 1807, graduating in 1814.

In the Fall of 1815, the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), appointed Fisk to the first Palestine Mission. In November,1819, Fisk sailed for Palestine with his Middlebury classmate Levi Parsons. Between 1820-23, Fisk carried out his mission in Smyrna and Egypt. When his fellow missionary Levi Parsons died in early 1822, Fisk took over his mission in Egypt. After Parson's death in Alexandria, Fisk traveled to Malta, toured Egypt, Syria, and Beirut, and crossed the Sinai Desert. In 1825, on his return to Jerusalem from Beirut, Fisk was reported to have been attacked by Bedouins. He died of his injuries in 1825. He was thirty-three.

This collection consists primarily of journals and letters from Fisk to fellow missionaries, describing his journey to the Middle East, encouraging them to join him, and telling them what to expect and how to prepare, and what languages to study.