49 B a u m a n R a r e B o o k s First Edition Of Franklin’s Printing Of Pennsylvania Charters And Laws, One Of Only 120 Copies, Very Rare Association Copy With Exceptional Revolutionary Provenance 64. FRANKLIN, Benjamin. The Charters of the Province of Pensilvania and City of Philadelphia. BOUND WITH: A Collection of All the Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania: Now in Force. BOUND WITH: An Appendix; Containing a Summary of Such Acts of Assembly As have been formerly in Force within this Province… But since expired, altered or repealed. Philadelphia, 1742 [i.e. 1743]. One volume. Folio, period-style full brown calf. $32,000. First edition of this folio volume of colonial Pennsylvania’s Charters and Laws, published by Franklin per order of the PennsylvaniaAssembly, one of only 120 copies printed, an especially rare association copy signed and dated by William Pidgeon and later belonging to Franklin’s fellow Philadelphia publisher, Zachariah Poulson. By 1700, the colony of “Pennsylvania was a portent of the America to be.” Published by Benjamin Franklin, this rare volume, one of only 120 copies issued, affirms the force of that statement in its assemblage of Pennsylvania’s Charters and colonial laws. Here fundamental “English concepts of liberty and selfgovernment had been planted” that would ultimately compel American independence (Morison, 13133). With the owner signature of William Pidgeon. Pidgeon’s home 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, whose Philadelphia print shop was around the corner from Franklin’s. Sabin 59973, 59982. ESTCW1554. Small bit of scattered marginalia, some contemporary (in an unidentified cursive). Interior fresh with trace of scattered foxing, ten leaves with restoration to margins, not affecting text. An especially handsome copy with a very memorable Revolutionary provenance.
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