Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made at Philadelphia in America, By Benjamin Franklin, L.L.D. and F.R.S. To which are added, Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects. The Whole corrected, methodized, improved, and now first collected into one Volume, and Illustrated with Copper Plates.

FRANKLIN, Benjamin.

Item Number: 125438

London: Printed for David Henry and sold by Francis Newbery, 1769.

First complete edition of “the most important scientific book of 18th-century America” and “America’s first great scientific contribution” (PMM). Octavo, bound in full contemporary calf with gilt ruling to the spine in six compartments within raised bands, red morocco spine label lettered in gilt, double gilt ruling to the front and rear panels. With the rarely found half-title. Advertisement & errata leaf bound in following the preface. Illustrated with 7 copper-engraved plates, 4 of which are folding. This, the fourth, first complete, and most desirable edition of Franklin’s important work contains for the first time complete notes on all of the experiments as well as correspondence between Peter Collinson, Franklin, and several other collaborators. The earlier editions, each issued in three parts as separately published pamphlets usually bound together, were carelessly published. Franklin edited this new one-volume edition himself, significantly revising the text, adding for the first time a number of his own philosophical letters and papers, introducing footnotes, correcting errors, and adding an index (Cohen, Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments). In near fine condition. Expertly rebacked. Housed in a custom full morocco clamshell box.

“Franklin’s most important scientific publication,” Experiments and Observations contains detailed accounts of the founding father’s crucial kite and key experiment, his work with Leiden jars, lightning rods and charged clouds (Norman 830). “The most dramatic result of Franklin’s researches was the proof that lightning is really an electrical phenomenon. Others had made such a suggestion before him— even Newton himself— but it was he who provided the experimental proof” (PMM). “The lightning experiments caused Franklin’s name to become known throughout Europe to the public at large and not merely to men of science. Joseph Priestley, in his History of Electricity, characterized the experimental discovery that the lightning discharge is an electrical phenomenon as ‘the greatest, perhaps, since the time of Isaac Newton… Franklin’s achievement… marked the coming of age of electrical science and the full acceptance of the new field of specialization” (DSB).