Books and Manuscripts

Franklin, B(enjamin).
Philosophical and Miscellaneous Papers
London: Printed for C. Dilly, 1787. First edition. 8vo. (vi), 186 pp. Illustrated with four engraved folding plates. Full contemporary brown calf, rebacked in tan leatherette, old calf spine laid down, corners worn, boards rubbed; all edges trimmed; endpapers renewed; gutter worn at title-page; chipping at title-page corners, soiling in gutter of same; ownership signature of Quaker John Pemberton, dated 1789, on title-page; first plate tipped in, wear along edges of same with large splits along folds; third and fourth plates mounted to linen; repair in upper edge of third plate, affecting some image; foxing and soiling to text; offsetting from plates. Ford 380; Howes B-328; Sabin 25562

Rare first edition of this important collection of Benjamin Franklin's political, scientific, and philosophical essays, the last to appear during his lifetime. Featuring scientific works on chimneys, his newly invented stove, and meteorological observations, as well as political essays such as Remarks concerning the Savages of North America, Letter from Dr. B. Franklin to B(enjamin) V(aughan)…on…Privateering, Information to those who would remove to America, and The Internal State of America... Franklin's description of the Gulf Stream, in A Letter from Dr. Benjamin Franklin, to Mr. Alphonsus le Roy…, is notably illustrated with the earliest map of the waterway (originally published in London in 1769). Publisher Charles Dilly intended this as a companion to Franklin's Experiments and Observations in Electricity (1769) and his Political, Miscellaneous and Philosophical Pieces (1779). A second volume was planned but never published. 

John Pemberton (1727-95) was a prominent Philadelphia Quaker minister and merchant, and the youngest son of Israel Pemberton, Sr. and Rachel Read. An active member of pre-Revolutionary Philadelphia, he supported the rights of the region's Native Americans, and in 1758, he and other leading Friends were present at the Treaty of Easton that helped bring the French and Indian War to an end. During the American Revolution his pacifism and refusal to engage in the war effort led to his arrest under suspicion of collusion with the British, and he was sent into exile with other leading Quakers by the Continental Congress.

According to RBH, this is only the third copy at auction since 2014.