“THE LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IS OF IMPORTANCE TO EVERY AMERICAN”: SCARCE 1868 EDITION OF FRANKLIN’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, THE FIRST PUBLISHED FROM HIS ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

(FRANKLIN, Benjamin) BIGELOW, John, editor. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1868. Octavo, original brown cloth.

First trade edition of Franklin’s autobiography, preceded only by a large paper issue the same year (100 copies)—“this is not only the first appearance of the autobiography from Franklin’s own copy, but also the first publication in English of the four parts, and the first publication of the very important ‘outline’ autobiography. It is therefore the first edition of the autobiography” (Ford, 423), with steel-engraved frontispiece of Franklin, scarce in original gilt-lettered cloth.

Benjamin Franklin worked on sections of his autobiography from 1771-89, but it was not published in a complete and authoritative form until this 1868 edition edited by John Bigelow. “This is not only the first appearance of the autobiography from Franklin’s own copy, but also the first publication in English of the four parts, and the first publication of the very important ‘outline’ autobiography. It is therefore the first edition of the autobiography” (Ford 423). The original manuscript had been left by Franklin to his grandson and literary executor Temple Franklin and found its way to the family of Louis-Guillaume Le Veillard, “where it remained until sold in 1867 to Bigelow, United States Minister to France… When Bigelow came to examine his purchase, he was astonished to find that what people had been reading for years as the authentic Life of Benjamin Franklin by Himself, was only a garbled and incomplete version of the real autobiography. Temple Franklin had taken unwarranted liberties with the original. In 1868, therefore, Bigelow published the standard edition of Franklin’s Autobiography. It corrected errors in the previous editions and was the first English edition to contain the short fourth part, comprising the last few pages of the manuscript, written during the last year of Franklin’s life… The life of Benjamin Franklin is of importance to every American… As far as American literature is concerned, Franklin has no contemporaries” (Berges, Introduction, Autobiography, 88-92). Not long after this work’s publication in 1868, historian Frederick Jackson Turner proclaimed Franklin “the first great American… His life is the story of American common-sense in its highest form” (Isaacson, 481). First trade edition: preceded the same year by a large paper issue of 100 copies. With tissue-guarded steel-engraved frontispiece portrait of Franklin. Howes F323. Sabin 25492. Bookplate.

An exceptional about-fine copy with only lightest edge-wear to original bright gilt cloth.