8vo. [2], 188pp, [2]. With a half-title. Contemporary reverse calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece. Worn, without upper board, with loss to spine and splitting to lower joint. Tear without loss to D1. Presentation copy, inscribed 'The Gift of George Marshall (the Author) to Thomas Collin April 20th 1787'.

A rare, gossipy conduct of life work, epistolary in structure, by the sometime East India Company chief officer, poet and member of the Trinity House in Newcastle, George Marshall (c.1740/1-1823). Signed to the preface with the nom de plume 'Palinurus', the 17 letters are addressed to a younger brother 'Jack', and concern, alongside the usual advice on life stages and etiquette, the somewhat more professional-slanted: 'thoughts on the coal trade', 'thoughts on escape from shipwreck' and the 'necessity of commanders setting good examples'.

Although identified as the author of this work, and another (Epistles in verse, Newcastle, 1812) in Welford's provincial study Men of Mark 'twixt Tyne and Tweed (London, 1895), this detail, substantiated by the authorial presentation of this volume, appears to have escaped later cataloguers.

Rare; ESTC locates just four copies, all in the UK (BL, NMM and two copies at Newcastle Central Library).