Beschreibung:

FRANKLIN, Benjamin. The Way to Wealth, as clearly shown in the Preface of an Old Pensylvanian Almanack, intitled Poor Richard improved, Written by Dr. Benjamin Franklin Extracted from the Doctor's Political Works. Courteous reader.... [London: Printed for J. Johnson 1779].
FRANKLIN, Benjamin. The Way to Wealth, as clearly shown in the Preface of an Old Pensylvanian Almanack, intitled Poor Richard improved, Written by Dr. Benjamin Franklin Extracted from the Doctor's Political Works. Courteous reader.... [London: Printed for J. Johnson 1779]. Folio broadside (14 7/8 x 12 in). Printed in four columns, bold heading "The Way to Wealth." (Some fraying at edges, small chip detached affecting 2 or 3 letters, old repairs on verso). Ford 119. "EARLY TO BED, AND EARLY TO RISE...". As Franklin's bibliographer observes, this is "By far the most frequently reprinted of all of Franklin's works...alternately called 'Father Abraham's Speech,' 'The Way to Wealth,' 'La Science du Bonhomme Richard,' or, occasionally, a bastardized form of these titles. In his autobiography, Franklin says he created 'the harangue of a wise old Man' called Father Abraham for the preface of the almanac of 1758. This was the last Poor Richard Improved...that Franklin composed himself, the twenty-sixth in the series; it has become the foundation of the Franklin image throughout the world. The Franklin Papers identifies 145 separate reprintings...before the end of the eighteenth century, and this is by no means a complete list...Franklin observed with pleasure that it was 'reprinted in Britain on a Broadside to be stuck up in Houses....'" In a footnote to column 1, the English printer comments that Franklin's fictional interlocutors, Richard Saunders and Father Abraham, "have proved...they are no common preachers. And shall we brother Englishmen, refuse good sense and saving knowledge, because it comes from the other side of the water?"