"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