Ellis Pugh | Printed while Franklin was working in Keimer's printing-house

Ellis Pugh

A Salutation to the Britains, to Call Them from the Many Things to the One Thing Needful, for the Saving of their Souls. … translated from the British language by Rowland Ellis, revis'd and corrected by David Lloyd. Philadelphia: printed by S. Keimer, for W. Davies, Bookbinder, in Chestnut-Street, 1727

8vo (141 x 87 mm). Contemporary manuscript table of contents to front flyleaf, ownership inscriptions to page [xvi] and the rear flyleaf, manuscript corrections in text; the occasional pale spot, small loss at lower corner of leaf F8, trimmed close, just touching the top of the manuscript table of contents and a few of the brackets surrounding the page numbers. Twentieth-century pebbled brown calfskin, gilt spine, boards, board edges, and turn-ins gilt, top edge gilt, green silk ribbon; minor staining to boards, joints lightly rubbed.

A rare Keimer imprint, dating from when Franklin ran his printing-house, with distinguished contemporary Quaker provenance.

On 6 October 1723, a seventeen-year-old runaway indentured servant from Boston, Benjamin Franklin, arrived in Philadelphia for the first time. He first applied for a job with the well-established printer Andrew Bradford, but Bradford already had a journeyman and suggested that Franklin try to find work with another printer named Samuel Keimer. Keimer had rented a house, at present-day 318 Market Street, from John Read (whose daughter, Deborah, would later become Franklin's wife). According to Franklin, Keimer "ask'd me a few questions, put a composing stick in my hand to see how I work'd, and then said he would employ me soon, tho' he just then had nothing for me to do" (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Lemay and Zall, p. 26). Keimer's shop consisted of a broken-down printing press and a worn-out font of type. Franklin, decidedly unimpressed, did his best with his first job composing for Keimer — the broadside "Elegy on... Aquila Rose" (1723). In 1724, Franklin left his shop and sailed for London, where he stayed for two years.

Once back in Philadelphia, Franklin tried to find work as a clerk or a salesman. Failing at that, he reluctantly returned to work for Keimer in the spring of 1727. As Franklin writes about him in his autobiography, he "had heard a bad character of him [Keimer] in London... and was not fond of having anything to do with him" (Autobiography, p. 53). In fact, Keimer was not only an unskilled printer who knew "nothing of presswork," he had spent time in a debtor's prison before arriving in Philadelphia, and had tried to pass himself off as a Quaker until the Society of Friends exposed him.

However, Keimer promised to let Franklin be in charge of the printing-house and its five employees, and agreed to pay him better wages. Franklin accepted the proposal. He worked hard, not only on composition and presswork, but also training the employees and casting additional type to restore Keimer's worn and depleted font. After a quarrel on 2 October 1727, Keimer gave Franklin his notice. Franklin, furious, "told him his wish was unnecessary for I would leave him that instant; and so taking my hat walk'd out the doors" (Autobiography, pp. 55–56). Soon after, Franklin started his own printing-house in partnership with Hugh Meredith, one of Keimer's workmen, with funds from Meredith's father.

This Quaker religious tract, translated from Welsh, was printed at Keimer's shop during the period that Franklin ran the printing house. As such, Franklin likely had a hand in its production, perhaps as the text's compositor. This copy is inscribed, "Lydia Lancaster, her Book, given by her friend David Lloyd Judge of Pencilvainia." There are several manuscript corrections in the text, likely in the hand of Chief Justice Lloyd, William Penn's colonial secretary, who revised the text. Lydia Lancaster was one of the foremost English Quaker women of her day, and, unusually for the period, a Quaker minister.

REFERENCES

ESTC W22069; Lemay, J. A. Leo. The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. I. (Philadelphia: UPenn, 2006), pp. 215-258 and 318-331

PROVENANCE

Lydia Lancaster (gift of Chief Justice David Lloyd, with inscription on rear flyleaf) — Mr. George Brinley (Sold Leavitt and Co., "Catalog of the American Library of the Late … Part II," 22 March, 1880)