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FRANKLIN, Benjamin.
Experiments and Observations on Electricity,
made at Philadelphia in America. To which are added, Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects. The Whole corrected, methodized, improved, and now collected into one Volume, and illustrated with Copper Plates. The Fifth Edition.
Fifth edition, the last to be published during Franklin's lifetime and the most complete. Described as "The most important scientific book of eighteenth-century America" (PMM), it includes descriptions of his most important electrical investigations, including the kite-flying experiment and his novel work with Leyden jars, lightning-rods, lighting strokes, and charged clouds. These researches won Franklin the Royal Society's Copley medal in 1753, and made his reputation as America's first great scientist. The contents of this edition are much expanded, including two more plates than the previous edition and containing letters on scientific and philosophical subjects written between 1747 to 1768.
Octavo (225 × 170 mm). Mid twentieth-century burgundy half morocco, spine gilt in compartment, marbled sides and endpapers, red speckled edges. In a red cloth slipcase. Frontispiece and 6 plates of which 4 are folding, 6 wood engravings within the text, 6 staves of musical notation within the text. Bound without half-title. Contemporary marginalia to page 373. Binding a little rubbed, spots to pages 290 & 291, and to 500 & 501, pages 430 and 431 tanned from inserted material but contents overall clean and fresh. An excellent copy.
