In the spring of 1796 John Marsh, a forty-four year old gentleman composer and pillar of genteel society ensconced in a fashionable Chichester townhouse, began to write a memoir of his family and ancestors. Marsh was leader of the Chichester orchestra, an enthusiastic reader of histories, scientific treatises and modern novels, a contributor to literary and musical journals and a regular performer on the organ and piano. He was eventually to compose at least twenty-eight overtures and symphonies and twelve concerti grossi, numerous services, chants, anthems and voluntaries as well as catches, glees and songs, making him one of the most prolific English composers of the eighteenth century.

But in March 1796 he was at a loose end. He had just finished composing his concerto in D, and had also completed writing his ‘Musical Definitions and Thoughts on the Different Styles of Music’, a primer for young musicians, as well as a treatise on the intermediate state of the soul, The Excursions of a Spirit. Determined to have ‘a job always at hand to employ my leisure’ (17.87), he began an account of his ancestors and the Kentish estate to which he owed his wealth. By April, and despite spending much of his spare time reading William Godwin's ‘eccentric performance’ (17.107) Caleb Williams, he had written a first draft.