Autumn 2020 Catalogue

3 American Heroes & Leaders Autumn 2020 “The Most Important Political Writing Of The Revolutionary Period” 1. DICKINSON, John. Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, To the Inhabitants of the British Colonies. London, 1768. Octavo, modern half green calf gilt, custom clamshell box. $8500. Click for more info First English edition of the famed revolutionary work by John Dickinson, “Penman of the Revolution,” the work that helped spark repeal of the Stamp Act by calling it “pernicious to freedom,” one of only 500 copies, featuring the first appearance in print of Franklin’s prefatory British Editor to the Reader, with Franklin calling for restraint. Dickinson, a leading member of the Continental Congress, authored several of the most important Revolutionary works. His Letters from a Farmer was chief among them and fundamentally “helped to repeal the Stamp Act” (Langguth, 175). He singles out the 1765 Stamp Act as “pernicious to freedom” and contests “Parliament’s power with greater acuity than any writer had shown before” (Bailyn, 215). Dickinson’s “12 letters appeared first in the Pennsylvania Chronicle between November 30, 1767 and February 8, 1768” (Adams 54a) and were first issued separately in the virtually unobtainable March 1768 Philadelphia edition. In London, “in June of 1768 Strahan recorded Almon’s order for 500 copies” (Adams, American Controversy 68-7b). Franklin's preface appears here in print for the first time and was not present in either the first American edition, or the 1774 second English edition. Bound without half title, rear blank. With the distinctive bookplate of prominent bibliophile and publisher, James Strohn Copley, renowned for his dedication to freedom of the press. Small contemporary notation in an unidentified hand. Text generally freshwithmild scattered soiling, foxing, title pagewith tiny gutter-edge holes from original stitching not affecting text, mild edge-wear to spine. A desirable extremely good copy, handsomely bound.