Benjamin Franklin | “Your affectionate Uncle BF”

Benjamin Franklin

Philosophical and Miscellaneous Papers (Edward Bancroft, ed.). London: Printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry, M.DCC.LXXXVII (1787)

8vo (220 x 132 mm). Advertisement leaf, 4 folding plates, including a folding chart of the Gulf Stream and depictions of the Franklin stove; some offsetting from plates. Fine retrospective half calf over marbled boards. Half red morocco slipcase gilt, chemise.

A rare presentation copy of the last collection of Franklin’s writings published in the author’s lifetime, inscribed “Your affectionate Uncle BF” on the Advertisement leaf. The recipient was presumably Franklin's grand-nephew Jonathan Williams, who assisted Franklin with his affairs in England and France for much of the period 1770–1785. Writing to his niece, Williams’s mother, Franklin declared, “It has been wonderful to me to see a young man from America, in a place so full of various amusements as London is, as attentive to business, as diligent in it, and keeping as close at home till it was finished, as if it had been for his own profit; and as if he had been at the public diversions so often, as to be tired of them” (Papers 18:55–56). The two returned to America in 1785 and remained close for years. Williams became a scientist of some note—he published in 1799 a treatise titled Thermometrical Navigation (see lot 150)—and was an officer of the American Philosophical Society, which Franklin had helped to found.

The Advertisement leaf preceding the table of contents explains that “Some years ago a volume in quarto, intituled, ‘Experiments and Observations on Electricity,’ &c. together with ‘Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects,’ by Dr. Franklin, was published; and afterwards another volume in octavo, intituled, ‘Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces.’ The Papers now offered to the public were written since the former publications; and the Editor expects shortly to be able to subjoin a Second, to this First Part, and thereby to complete the volume.” The planned second volume was never published. (For two of the other works described, see lots 59, 120; for a letter from Franklin to Edward Bancroft concerning the present publication, see preceding lot.)

Among the important political and scientific essays in this collection are “Letter from Dr. B. Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan … of Privateering” (1785), and “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America” (1784), which is “one of the clearest expressions of his belief that American society should be based on the virtues of the middle … classes” (Isaacson). This collection additionally contains three major scientific writings: “Description of a New Stove for the burning of Pitcoal” (1785), “Letter from Dr. B. Franklin to Dr. Ingenbausz [On the Causes and Cure of Smoky Chimneys]” (1785), and “Letter from Dr. Benjamin Franklin … Containing Sundry Maritime Observations” (1785). Franklin used the latter paper on the Gulf Stream to “proclaim the virtues of his nation and its people.” This inspired others to “think of the Gulf Stream in political terms. In 1790 Tom Paine declared the French Revolution ‘as fixed as the Gulf Stream.’ Jonathan Williams [the recipient of this copy] claimed the current’s waters were as distinct as ‘the colors of red, white and blue’” (Chaplin). 

REFERENCES

ESTC T59394; Ford 380; Howes B328; Norman 834; Sabin 25562

PROVENANCE

Jonathan Williams (presentation inscription) — Haskell F. Norman (bookplate; Christie’s New York, 15 June 1998, lot 453)