Exceptionally rare sailing directions for the Eastern Seaboard from Philadelphia to the Mississippi, including the coasts of Florida and Cuba.

In the title Norie provides a long list of sources used for the pilot, including: Jospeh De Barres, Samuel Holland (under the pseudonym Captain N Holland), and Michael Lane (assistant surveyor to James Cook), together with "masters and pilots, both in the British and American Services."

The sailing directions are the work of John William Norie (1722-1843) an important hydrographer, chartmaker and publisher, a writer on navigation, and publisher of nautical manuals, as well as selling globes and all manner of nautical instruments. He was agent for the sale of Admiralty charts, and chart seller to the East India Company and Trinity House. He was born in London of Scottish parents, and apprenticed to William Heather, a noted chartmaker, as a draughtsman, and his first charts appear under the Heather imprint from 1795 onwards. In 1813, he bought William Heather's business, in partnership with Charles Wilson. The partnership lasted until 1840, when Norie sold his share of the business to Wilson and retired. Wilson continued to trade as Norie and Wilson, the firm merging with J. Imray and Son in 1899, and surviving to the present as Imray, Laurie, Norie and Wilson Ltd.

Norie had a prolific output of charts, reissuing Heather's stock and adding new charts of his own making of all parts of the world, these too many to list. Important publications include his 'A new and complete epitome of practical navigation' (1805); 'A complete pilot for the south coasts of England and Ireland' (1817); 'The new Mediterranean pilot, containing sailing directions for the coasts of France, Spain, and Portugal, from Ushant to Gibraltar' (1817) and 'Norie's set of celestial maps for finding the principal stars in the heavens' (1825).

Due to their ephemeral nature, sailing directions are considerably rarer than the charts which they accompany. The present pilot is no exception. We are unable to trace any example appearing at auction since the war. The only institutional example we could trace is housed in the Huntington Library.