Sep 17, 2015 - Sale 2391

Sale 2391 - Lot 18

Price Realized: $ 3,900
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--PRELUDE.) The Pennsylvania Chronicle, and Universal Advertiser. Volume II, 52 weekly 8-page issues complete with collective title page, plus 21 "Postscript" supplement issues. [2], 452 pages plus 66 unnumbered supplement pages interspersed. 4to, contemporary 1/4 calf, worn; free endpapers imperfect, minor dampstaining and foxing, occasional tears, lacking pages 351-4 of 7 November issue, 3 supplement leaves partially torn out; early owners' inscriptions on title page and first masthead, library tag and bookplate on front pastedown, small library tag on backstrip. Philadelphia, 1 February 1768 to 23 January 1769
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Additional Details

The Pennsylvania Chronicle was founded by patriot-printer William Goddard in 1767; his sister Mary Katherine Goddard was also involved with the publication. This volume reflects the pre-revolutionary turmoil which followed the Townshend Acts, and includes the final three installments of John Dickinson's "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania." The 1 August issue includes a rousing address at the Pennsylvania State House, which begins "At a time when the iron rod of power is stretched over us, when not only claims are set up, but acts passed destructive of our liberty, and when ruin is threatened us, if we dare even to complain, not to be alarmed, argues insensibility, or something worse" (page 214). Several pieces have been attributed to Benjamin Franklin, including long letters from England concerning the Stamp Act on pages 32, 100-1, 313, 392-3, 397, and 440-1 (see Ford 608). Provenance: sold by original subscriber Thomas Robinson to the publisher William Goddard (1740-1817); thence to his son William Giles Goddard (1794-1846); donated in 1883 by his daughter Elizabeth Goddard Shepard (1829-1910) to the Rhode Island Historical Society; lacking the circa 1970s withdrawal stamp, though the following volume has one (see lot 19).