William Franklin's Copy
American Instructor: or, Young man's best companion. Containing, spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetick, in an easier way than any yet published; and how to qualify any person for business, without the help of a master.
Philadelphia: Printed by B. Franklin and D. Hall, 1748.
Price:
$15,000.00
First American edition. 4 (of 6) plates; lacks plates at pp. 174 and 376. iv, 378 pp only (lacks A3 and blank A4). 8vo. Contemporary calf, ruled in blind, spine with raised bands, loss at head of spine. Foxing and staining. Blue morocco backed slipcase. Provenance: William Franklin (signature on title and inscriptions in his hand on the pastedown and verso of the title); Jay Snider (booklabel). Evans 6238; Hildeburn 1062; Miller 439; Rosenbach 31; Rink 140; ESTC W11564.
Item #378202
Benjamin Franklin printed this first American edition of Fisher’s text, first published in London in 1730 as The Instructor, and revised it for his Colonial audience. Among those revisions was the edition of Franklin's own essay Advice to a Young Tradesman, with the famous saying "Remember that Time is Money."
Remarkably, the present example with provenance to William Franklin (1730-1813), signed by him as a young man on the title. William Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's extra-marital son, was raised by his father and Deborah Read, his father's common-law wife. It would seem no coincidence, that the inscriptions within the book by William Franklin have a distinctly Benjamin Franklin-esque resonance.
On the front pastedown, in William Franklin's hand, are the final two lines of a 17th-century poem by James Shirley titled The Glories of our Blood and State: "Only the actions of the just / smell sweet & blossom in the dust." The verso of the title is a lengthier inscription by William Franklin, being several stanzas from a poem by Laetitia Pilkington, an 18th century Anglo-Irish poet, beginning: "I envy not the Proud their wealth / Their equipage & State; / Give me but innocence & Health / I ask not to be great..."
A remarkable association copy of a rare book.
Item #378202
Benjamin Franklin printed this first American edition of Fisher’s text, first published in London in 1730 as The Instructor, and revised it for his Colonial audience. Among those revisions was the edition of Franklin's own essay Advice to a Young Tradesman, with the famous saying "Remember that Time is Money."
Remarkably, the present example with provenance to William Franklin (1730-1813), signed by him as a young man on the title. William Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's extra-marital son, was raised by his father and Deborah Read, his father's common-law wife. It would seem no coincidence, that the inscriptions within the book by William Franklin have a distinctly Benjamin Franklin-esque resonance.
On the front pastedown, in William Franklin's hand, are the final two lines of a 17th-century poem by James Shirley titled The Glories of our Blood and State: "Only the actions of the just / smell sweet & blossom in the dust." The verso of the title is a lengthier inscription by William Franklin, being several stanzas from a poem by Laetitia Pilkington, an 18th century Anglo-Irish poet, beginning: "I envy not the Proud their wealth / Their equipage & State; / Give me but innocence & Health / I ask not to be great..."
A remarkable association copy of a rare book.
