CITING BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S EXPERIMENTS WITH ELECTRICITY: UNIQUE COPY OF A CONTEMPORARY STUDENT’S PHYSICS NOTES, BEAUTIFULLY TRANSCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED ENTIRELY BY HAND

(FRANKLIN, Benjamin) PRETRE, Professeur Magnin. (Manuscript Notebook). Leçons de Phisique Expérimentale dictées par Monsieur Magnin Prêtre, Professeur royal de Phisique pour l'Université de Valence, au Petit Séminaire d'Autun, recueillies et mises en pratique par François Rêné Mathey son élève. L'an de grace 1785. Valence, France: 1785. Quarto, contemporary full sheep. pp. [11], 403, [24]. Housed in custom cloth clamshell box. $5500.

Splendid manuscript copy of an 18th-century French university student’s physics lecture notes, carefully transcribed in an elegant hand and presented as a textbook, with 46 finely detailed pen-and-ink illustrations of scientific experiments also rendered completely by hand. With five pages devoted to the “Systême de Franklin” of electricity (pp. 302-06).

While Franklin first published his experimental proof of lightning as an electrical phenomenon in 1754, he did not thoroughly systematize his work until the 1769 revised issue of Experiments and Observations on Electricity. These lecture notes provide ample demonstration that within a generation Franklin's discoveries had become part of Physics curricula across the world, even in such a relatively small town as Valence. Features 17 meticulously and beautifully drawn full-page pen-and-ink illustrations ("planches"), 11 in black and green inks; and 29 in-text pen-and-ink illustrations, 23 in black and green inks. All drawings, whether in-text or full-page, enclosed within double-rule border. With précis, table of contents, faculty and student list. Text in French. Notarized certificate of course completion signed by Professor Magnin, bearing the university's stamps, bound in.

Light wear to extremities of contemporary sheep binding; expert repair to spine ends. Several drawings split along wide borders of acidic ink; expert paper repair to verso of a few such splits. A unique copy of these 18th-century lecture notes, elegantly rendered by hand. Custom boxed.