THE "FIRST GREAT AMERICAN": SECOND ENGLISH EDITION OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S WORKS, 1793, CONTAINING HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, POPULAR ESSAYS, AND HIS MAJOR SPEECH AT THE CLOSE OF THE 1787 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

FRANKLIN, Benjamin. Works of the late Doctor Benjamin Franklin: Consisting of His Life Written By Himself, together with Essays, Humorous, Moral & Literary, Chiefly in the Manner of The Spectator. London: Printed for G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1793. Two volumes. Small octavo, early 20th-century three-quarter dark blue morocco gilt. $4500.

Second English edition, printed in the same year as the first and including three additional essays, of this leading popular collection of Franklin's Works, edited by his friend Richard Price, including Franklin's autobiography, major essays such as his thoughts "On the Slave Trade" and his powerful speech at the close of the 1787 Constitutional Convention—"the most eloquent words Franklin ever wrote." A wide-margined, handsomely bound copy.

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, in both his life and writings, "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 first English edition of Franklin's Works, published only three years after 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 is Franklin's famed autobiography, "the most widely read of all American autobiographies… it holds the essence of the American way of life" (Grolier American 100:21). Also included are numerous essays, such as his "Advice to a Young Tradesman," "On Criminal Laws and Privateering," "On the Slave Trade," "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America" and Franklin's powerful speech given the final day of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, proclaiming "for the ages the enlightened creed that became central to America's freedom. They were the most eloquent words Franklin ever wrote" (Isaacson, 457). Edited and with a preface by Franklin's friend Richard Price, this English edition of the Works is "a collection of the 'popular' pieces of Franklin, together with a re-translation of the autobiography" from the 1791 French first edition of the autobiography, which appeared in English later the same year in a "wretched re-translation from the Paris edition" (Ford 437, 386). The three essays added to this second edition are "Sketch of an English School," "On the Theory of the Earth," and "Loose Thoughts on an Universal Fluid." The American edition of the Works was published the following year. Title pages with vignette portraits of Franklin. With errata leaf bound at rear of Volume I. Ford 438. Sabin 25600.

Title pages trimmed at side margins; remaining text leaves quite wide-margined, often untrimmed. Occasional spotting to a some early leaves; faint dampstain to last few leaves of Volume II. Morocco-gilt bindings handsome and fine.