Visions of America: The Stephen White Collection

2 volumes in one, 4to (254 x 197 mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait of Franklin and 12 engraved plates by F.N. Martinent. (Offsetting to title-page, some spotting.) Contemporary quarter calf over speckled boards, spine in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands, olive morocco lettering-piece gilt in second, others gilt (spine ends repaired, extremities rubbed).

FIRST FRENCH EDITION of Franklin's complete works on electricity, based on the fourth British edition, and contains letters and papers of Franklin which had not previously appeared in any language. The first volume is devoted to Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity, which Carter calls "the most important scientific book of eighteenth-century America" (PMM) The copy contains the two unnumbered pages ("Approbation & Permission du Roi") in the Cohen collation. Plus there are two half-titles and the portrait of Franklin not included in the Cohen or Sabin collations (but mentioned in Ford). Cohen, pp. 146-47; Ford B.135; Grolier 100 Science, 31a; PMM 199; Sabin 25607.