A physician and medical reformer enthused by the scientific and cultural progress of the Enlightenment as it took hold in Britain, Thomas Percival (1740–1804) wrote on many topics, including public health and demography. His influential publication on medical ethics is considered the first modern formulation. In 1807, his son Edward published this four-volume collection of his father's diverse work. Some of the items here had never been published before, including a selection of Percival's private correspondence and a biographical account written by Edward. Volume 1 contains this biography and the full text of Percival's popular self-improvement book, A Father's Instructions. Volume 2 contains essays on moral and literary subjects. Also included is the text of Percival's Medical Ethics (1803). Volume 3 contains the first two parts of Essays Medical and Experimental, the revised edition of which has been reissued separately in this series in one volume. Volume 4 contains the third and fourth parts, which were completed following the revised edition.