8vo (209 x 127 mm). (Very light intermittent spotting.) Contemporary full calf with red morocco spine label (front joint repaired, rubbing, very minor losses to spine tail).

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of Franklin's memoirs. The work was first printed as an unauthorized edition in Paris in 1791 and consisted only of the first section which in turn was based on an unrevised manuscript. At the time of Franklin's death in 1790 four different manuscripts were in circulation, with the London edition being the first to bring them all together into a coherent whole. The London edition is notable for its first section being a translation from the French into English rather than a direct transcription from Franklin's original manuscript. Though not Franklin's words exactly, "this account is the epitome of Franklin's spirit. In it one sees him as a typical though great example of 18th-century enlightenment, a Yankee Puritan who could agree with Rousseau and Voltaire" (Hart 142). Grolier American 21 ("The most widely read of all American autobiographies...it holds the essence of the American way of life"). Ford, 386; Howes, F323; Sabin 25573.