"ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE MEN, CERTAINLY OF OUR TIMES AS A POLITICIAN, OR OF ANY AGE AS A PHILOSOPHER": FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF FRANKLIN'S COMPLETE WORKS, WITH ENGRAVED PORTRAIT AND PLATES, COPY OF HENRY BROUGHAM, LORD CHANCELLOR OF GREAT BRITAIN, 1820-34, WITH HIS SIGNATURE AND BOOKPLATES

FRANKLIN, Benjamin. The Complete Works, in Philosophy, Politics, and Morals… Now First Collected and Arranged: With Memoirs of His Early Life, Written by Himself. London: J. Johnson, and Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1806. Three volumes. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter marbled calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, green and red spine labels, marbled boards and edges.

First collected edition of Franklin's Complete Works, including his autobiography, "Way to Wealth," numerous political writings including "Causes of the American Discontents before 1768" and works on the Stamp Act, and adding for the first time his scientific writings, with an engraved frontispiece portrait, engraved vignette title pages, 13 plates (nine folding, one double-page) and a folding map of the Gulf Stream; this copy with the family crest bookplates and autograph signature of Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 1830 through 1834, co-founder of The Edinburgh Review, staunch abolitionist and legal reformer, who extolled Franklin as "one of the most remarkable men, certainly, of our times as a politician, or of any age as a philosopher." A wonderful copy in beautiful contemporary calf with outstanding provenance.

Hailed as the "first great American" by historian Frederick Jackson Turner, America's "first philosopher" by David Hume, and "one of the most sensible men that ever lived" by Emerson, Benjamin Franklin "held true to a fundamental ideal with unwavering and at times heroic fortitude: a faith in the wisdom of the common citizen" (Isaacson, 478-93). This beautiful 1806 edition of Franklin's Complete Works, published within two decades of his death, offers rich evidence of the pragmatic brilliance in the words of this Founding Father who was described as "a great genius" even by his adversary John Adams. Featured in these three volumes is a re-translation of Franklin's famed autobiography (first published in French in 1791), "the most widely read of all American autobiographies," joined by a continuation of his life by Stuber and extracts from his will (Grolier, 100 Influential American Books 100:21). Also included are his "Letters and Papers on Electricity" and numerous scientific essays, key political writings such as his "Causes of the American Discontents before 1768," works on the Stamp Act that include a transcript of his 1766 examination before the House of Commons, "The Way to Wealth," his essay "On the Slave Trade," and extensive correspondence. A collected Works was first published in France (1791), Germany (1792), and Sweden (1792); the first edition in English was published in London in 1793, but that often-reprinted edition included chiefly the popular and political writings, not the scientific papers (see Ford 437). This 1806 edition was edited by "Mr. Marshall… [who] used much diligence in searching for essays and papers, that had not before been comprised in any collection" (Ford 550). Engraved frontispiece portrait (Vol. I); each volume with letterpress and engraved vignette title pages. Publisher's advertisement leaf bound in after the Table of Contents in Volume III. Ford 550. Sabin 25495. With autograph signature of Henry Brougham on title page of Volume III and his family crest bookplate in each volume. Henry Brougham (1778-1868), 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 1830 through 1834. Brougham called Franklin: "One of the most remarkable men, certainly, of our times as a politician, or of any age as a philosopher… who also stands alone in combining these two characters, the greatest that man can sustain, and in this, that having borne the first part in enlarging science by one of the greatest discoveries ever made, he bore the second part in founding one of the greatest empires" (Brougham, Statesmen in the Time of George III). Born in Scotland, Brougham co-founded The Edinburgh Review in 1802 and, in its early years, "wrote most of the economics articles… particularly those relating to colonial policy… [He] authored the famously humiliating critique of the young Lord Byron's poetry in the 1808 Review, to which Byron replied with his biting English Bards and Scotch Reviewers… Brougham was a comrade and popularizer of the London classical economists, notably J.R. McCulloch, James Mill and Harriet Martineau" (Fonseca, History of Economic Thought website). "Before and during his tenure as lord chancellor he sponsored numerous major legal reforms, and he took the lead in creating (1825–28) the University of London, the first English nondenominational institution of higher learning… [I]n his book Colonial Policy of European Powers (1803), he attacked the slave trade… He sponsored the Public Education Bill of 1820; continued to make antislavery speeches; advocated parliamentary reform; and delivered a now-famous address (February 7, 1828) that gave direction to the reform of English civil procedure later in the 19th century. During the 1820s he helped to found… the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, intended to make good books available at low prices to the working class… He was largely responsible for the establishment of the central criminal court in London and the judicial committee of the Privy Council. He greatly speeded equity proceedings, inspired later legislation for a county court system, and was a leader in forcing the parliamentary Reform Act of 1832 through the House of Lords" (Britannica). Small later bookplates.

Interiors generally very bright and clean with some embrowning to just a few scattered pages and plates; small open tear to one leaf with loss of a few letters. A near-fine set, beautifully bound in contemporary three-quarter calf gilt, with a distinguished provenance.