Beschreibung:

FRANKLIN, Benjamin (1706-1790). Mémoires de la Vie Privée de Benjamin Franklin écrits par lui-même, et adressés a son fils. Suivis d'un Précis historique de sa Vie politique, et de plusieurs Pièces, relatives à ce Père de la Liberté . Paris: Buisson, 1791. 2 parts in one, 8 o (195 x 119 mm). (2B6 with lower corner torn away not affecting text, some occasional pale spotting, some marginal staining from binding at beginning and end.) Contemporary mottled calf, smooth spine gilt (a bit rubbed and worn, repair at head of spine). Provenance : Henry E. Huntington (duplicate stamp at end). FIRST EDITION of the unauthorized first portion of Franklin's celebrated autobiography. This portion, covering the events of his first 25 years (1706-1731), was mostly written by Franklin in England in 1771, with the addition of a short section up to 1731 written at Passy in 1784. It was evidently published from a transcript--edited at Franklin's request by his grandson, Benjamin F. Bache--which had been loaned by Louis G. Veillard, Mayor of Passy, to a friend, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld d'Enville. Apparently a surreptitious copy was made from that manuscript and after Franklin's death in April 1790, the publisher Buisson, capitalizing on the late American's European reputation, issued the present unauthorized edition, which was immediately translated into German, Swedish and, ultimately, back into English. Three further parts, composed by Franklin long after the first part, were published in 1798, 1818 and 1828, but it was not until 1868 that an accurate edition of the complete autobiography in English appeared, edited by John Bigelow from Franklin's original manuscript, which Bigelow had rediscovered in France (that manuscript, presently in the Huntington Library, is described in detail in the Church Catalogue, 1085). Added to the present edition are chapters describing Franklin's later life, including his term as Minister to France, the foundation of the American Philosophical Society, electrical experiments, his famous epitaph and "La Science du Bonhomme Richard" (a translation by Antoine-Frangois Quitant of Franklin's perennially reprinted "The Way to Wealth or Poor Richard Improved" or "Father Abraham's Speech"). Ford, Franklin Bibliography 383; Grolier American 21 ("the most widely read of all American autobiographies...holds the essence of the American way of life"); Howes H-323; Streeter VII:4171; University of Pennsylvania The Intellectual World of Benjamin Franklin 121.