return to authors search >

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Found 13 books(s). Showing results 1 thru 13.
  • sort by
Click to View Full Book Details

"PENNSYLVANIA WAS A PORTENT OF THE AMERICA TO BE"

(FRANKLIN, Benjamin). Charters of the Province of Pensylvania. Philadelphia, 1742 [i.e. 1743]. One volume.

First edition of this folio volume of colonial Pennsylvania’s Charters and Laws, documents in which "English concepts of liberty and self-government had been planted," published by Franklin per order of the Pennsylvania Assembly, one of only 120 copies printed, an especially rare association copy signed by William Pidgeon, dated by him on the title page. The Trenton home of Pidgeon was "occupied by the Hessians" in the Battle of Trenton, and this copy's distinctive provenance is heightened by a separate inscription noting purchase by leading Revolutionary-era publisher Zachariah Poulson, a key "printer for the State Senate," whose Philadelphia print shop was around the corner from Franklin’s. $32,000.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

ENGLISH LIBERTIES “HAD MORE TO DO WITH PREPARING THE MINDS OF AMERICAN COLONISTS FOR THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THAN… COKE, SIDNEY AND LOCKE”

CARE, Henry. English Liberties. Providence, Rhode-Island, 1774.

1774 American edition of Care's immensely influential English Liberties, preceded only by the 1721 Boston edition, issued not long after the Boston Tea Party and the same year as the First Continental Congress, with printings of the Magna Charta, the Habeas Corpus Act (1769)—"a second Magna Charta"—and foundational texts on jury trials, "principally designed for America," containing printing of the preface to the 1721 edition proclaiming "when liberty is once gone, even life itself grows insipid," with rear list of Subscriber's Names. $13,500.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

"IF THE ABUSES OF GOVERNMENT SHOULD, AT ANY TIME, BE GREAT AND MANIFEST… I ASK, WHAT PRINCIPLES ARE THOSE WHICH OUGHT TO RESTRAIN AN INJURED AND INSULTED PEOPLE… FROM ALTERING THE WHOLE FORM OF THEIR GOVERNMENT?"

(CONSTITUTION) PRIESTLEY, Joseph. LL.D.F.R.S. An Essay on the First Principles of Government. London, 1768.

First edition of the profoundly influential work by Priestley, the English scientist and philosopher who defied his countrymen to support the American Revolution, a close friend of Franklin and Jefferson—who owned a copy of Priestley's Essay and considered "this one of the books which furnish the principles of our constitution"—a defining work of the Enlightenment that went beyond Locke in its argument for "political, civil and religious liberty." $12,500.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

"CREDITORS HAVE BETTER MEMORIES THAN DEBTORS"

FRANKLIN, Benj[amin]. Way to Wealth. Paris: 1795.

Rare Paris printing of one of Franklin's most famous works, the first edition in English of Franklin's Way to Wealth to be published in France, featuring engraved frontispiece portrait of Franklin by Dupleisse, handsomely bound in contemporary calf. $6200.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

PRINTED IN 1757 BY FRANKLIN AND HALL, EXCEPTIONALLY SCARCE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF TWO MAJOR QUAKER WORKS IN ONE VOLUME,

(FRANKLIN PRINTING) BARCLAY, Robert. Anarchy of the Ranters. WITH: Epistle to… Quakers. Philadelphia, 1757.

First American edition of this collection of two key Quaker works, published by the printing firm of Benjamin Franklin and David Hall “on behalf of the Society of Friends” (Miller 655), featuring Scottish-born Barclay’s influential Treatise on Christian Discipline, issued under its original title of Anarchy of the Ranters (1676)—“one of the most impressive theological writings of the century”—with An Epistle (1726) by Irish-born Quaker Pike, rare in contemporary sheep. $4800.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

PRINTED IN 1754 BY FRANKLIN AND HALL

(FRANKLIN PRINTING) (PENNSYLVANIA). Votes and Proceedings. Philadelphia, 1754.

First edition of the separately issued third volume of Franklin and Hall's folio reprinting of the Provincial Votes of Pennsylvania, 1682-1744; this volume covers the votes from October 14, 1726 through 1744. The copy of Pennsylvania politician James Ross, with his signature on the title page. Beautifully bound. $4500.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

RARE 1757 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND DAVID HALL IMPRINT, FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF PIKE'S EPISTLE TO THE NATIONAL MEETING OF FRIENDS, IN DUBLIN

(FRANKLIN, Benjamin) PIKE, Joseph. Epistle to the National Meeting of Friends in Dublin. Philadelphia, 1757.

First American edition of Joseph Pike's influential Quaker work, a rare imprint of the firm of Franklin and Hall, issued near the same time Franklin became a representative for the Pennsylvania Assembly and the colonies of Massachusetts, Georgia and New Jersey in Britain, handsomely bound in full morocco. $4500.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

“A DISTINCTLY AMERICAN CHARACTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE FOR THE AMERICAN PRESS”: RARE 1759 FRANKLIN AND HALL IMPRINT

(FRANKLIN, Benjamin, printer) RUTTY, John. Liberty of the Spirit. Dublin, Printed: Philadelphia Reprinted by, 1759.

First American edition of Quaker John Rutty’s work on spiritual and civic values, printed in Philadelphia by the firm of Benjamin Franklin and David Hall in 1759, with rarely found original front paper wrapper. $3500.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

JOSIAH TUCKER WAS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S "BÊTE NOIRE

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) TUCKER, Josiah. Series of Answers to Certain Popular Questions. Glocester, 1776.

First edition of Tucker's incendiary 1776 work in which he responds to both British and American positions on American independence, issued as news of the Revolution's opening battles reached Britain, expressing his long-held, "unique" and fiercely contentious views as Britain's "Cassandra," defending taxation of Americans even as he demanded "America be set free now," with Franklin known to make extensive comments in the margins of a copy now located in the Library of Congress, which he could have purchased in late December 1776. $3400.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

"AN INAPPROPRIATE EXERCISE OF POWER IN SPIRITUAL MATTERS": DELL'S DOCTRINE OF BAPTISMS, 1759, PUBLISHED BY THE PHILADELPHIA FIRM OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND DAVID HALL

(FRANKLIN, Benjamin) DELL, William. Doctrine of Baptisms. London Printed: Philadelphia, 1759.

1759 Philadelphia edition printed by Franklin and Hall of Dell's Doctrine of Baptisms at the request of the Philadelphia Friends and leading abolitionist Anthony Benezet, early signaling the emergence of a profoundly influential friendship between Franklin and Benezet. $2800.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

“THE FIRST COLLECTION OF FRANKLIN’S WRITINGS IN ANY LANGUAGE”

FRANKLIN, Benjamin. Oeuvres. Paris, 1773. Two volumes.

First edition of a landmark collection of Franklin’s scientific, philosophical and political writings—“the first major translation of Franklin’s scientific works into French”—edited by his friend Barbeu-Dubourg, including Franklin’s landmark series of letters on electricity to Peter Collinson, his Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind—“one of Franklin’s most important tracts”—his pre-Revolutionary letters to British commander William Shirley, his correspondence with the young Polly Stevenson, and “several pieces not included in any former edition” (Ford), a handsome wide-margined two-volume copy, with engraved frontispiece of Franklin and 12 engraved plates, scarce in contemporary calf. Text in French. $2200.

Read More
Click to View Full Book Details

"AT PALMER'S I WAS EMPLOYED IN COMPOSING… WOLLASTON'S RELIGION OF NATURE"

(FRANKLIN, Benjamin) WOLLASTON, William. Religion of Nature Delineated. London, 1725.

1725 edition of a Wollaston work especially famed as one of the earliest works printed by the young Franklin in London, inspiring Franklin—in a "private give-and-take with the printed page"—to craft a response in one of his earliest works, the virtually unobtainable Dissertation on Liberty. $1800.

Read More