A Letter, of Genteel and Moral Advice to a Young Lady: Being A System of Rules and Information; digested into a new and familiar Method, to qualify the FAIR SEX to be useful, and happy in every Scene of Life. The Sixth Edition, carefully Revised, Corrected, and Enlarged by the Author by WILKES (Wetenhall):

London: C. Hitch and L. Hawes, at the Red-Lion in Pater-noster ARow. MDCCLII 1766. 12mo, 162 x 89 mms., pp. [vi], 198, contemporary calf, gilt rules on covers, raised bands between gilt rules on spine; lacks label, slight wear to extremities, but a good to very good copy with the calligraphic inscription of "John Alfred Bach" and the autograph "Cathe. Barnwell" on the recto of the front free end-paper. The first edition of this work was published in Dublin in 1740, and the eighth edition was the last to be published in the 18th century. Wilkes died in 1751, so the sixth (1753), seventh (1760), and eighth editions are remarkable in having been "revised, corrected, and enlarged" by a man in his grave. In fact, this edition reprints the Preface to the fourth edition (1746), the first which Wetenhall revised. One learns, not surprisingly, that chastity is a young lady's greatest virtue: "Chastity is a suppression of all irregular desires, voluntary pollutions, sinful concupiscence, and of an immoderate use of sensual, or carnal pleasures." Perhaps some young lady wondered what regular desires, involuntary pollutions, sinless concupiscences, and moderate use of sensual or carnal pleasures would be. As I recall, Wilkes's work was one of the books Mary Bennet in Price and Prejudice was advised to read. See also online, 19th Century Feminist Responses to "A Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice." ESTC locates copies of this edition in BL and Dublin City libraries in these islands; and Virginia, Rutgers, and Arizona in North America.