FRANKLIN BENJAMIN Experiments and Observations on Electricit

Sale 2140 - Lot 59

Price Realized: $ 5,520

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,000

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN. Experiments and Observations on Electricity. 7 engraved plates (offsetting onto facing pages, plate 2 cropped in outer margin). [2], iv, [2], 496 [i. e., 508], [16] pages, including half-title. 4to, 20th-century 1/2 navy morocco gilt; contents toned, some foxing on preliminaries and plates. London: David Henry for Francis Newbery, 1769

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

first complete edition of Franklin's most important technical publication, "the most important scientific book of eighteenth-century America" (PMM), in which he proved that lightning is electrical and deduced the positive and negative nature of an electrical charge. Dibner, Heralds of Science 57; Grolier/Horblit 31a; Howes F320; Printing and the Mind of Man 199 (all describing the 1751-54 original edition in 3 parts); Ford 307; Roscoe A170(1); Wheeler Gift 367b (this edition).