Mémoires de la Vie Privée Écrits par Lui-Même, et Adressées à Son Fils; Suivis d'un Précis Historique de Sa Vie Politique, et de Plusieurs Pièces, Relative à Ce Père de la Liberté. [Memoirs of Private Life Written by Himself, and Addressed to His Son; Followed by a Historical Summary of His Political Life, and Several Pieces, Relating to This Father of Liberty] 2 parts in 1 volume. 8vo - 1791

Paris: Chez Buisson, Libraire, rue Haute-feuille, No. 20, 1791. 2 parts in 1 volume. 8vo. (7 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches). First edition. a4 A-I8 K6 A-M8 N6. [2], vi, 156; 207 [1] 380 pp. pp. 204-207 misnumbered as 360-363 as issued. Title page with woodcut printer's device, on laid paper. Text in French. Title, Preface, Part One: Chapters I-VII, Part Two: Chapters I-VIII, Recueil, La Science du Bonhomme Richard, Table of Contents. Contemporary tree calf binding rebacked with brown leather ruled blind into six compartments, with grey marbled endpapers on laid paper, housed in tan custom clamshell box with gilt-lettered spine. Two leaves with brown spots touching letters First edition, preceding any English printing, of Franklin's canonical autobiography. "The most widely read of all American autobiographies." [Grolier] "This book holds the essence of the American way of life." [Grolier] Franklin's best-know and most well-read book, a classic Americanum in which Franklin regales us with his rise from rags to riches - through thrift and frugality, of course. It is also one of the finest depictions of life in Philadelphia during the first half of the 1700s. It was said by some contemporaries that Franklin was remarkably honest about the people of whom he writes and of his motivations for his actions. This pirated true first edition appeared just a year after Franklin's death. The first British edition appeared in 1793; the first American edition in 1794, both after French, German, and Swedish editions had already been brought out. This French translation by the eminent French naturalist Gibelin is from Franklin's manuscript of 1771-1789 and covers the years 1706-1731 in the first part, and includes Wilmer's memoirs of Franklin for the period after 1731 in the second. The text of the first English editions came from re-translating this first French edition back into English, and not from Franklin's original manuscripts. [Green] "This account is the epitome of Franklin's spirit. In it one sees him as a typical though great example of 18th-century enlightenment, a Yankee Puritan who could agree with Rousseau and Voltaire, and use the language of Defoe and Addison with a genial homely twang." [Hart 142] This French translation by Jacques Gibelin constitutes the first appearance of any part of Franklin's autobiography, covering Franklin's life until 1731, the year he founded the Library Company of Philadelphia. It was translated into French from one of the two manuscript copies sent to friends in France for further advice. The work remains the ultimate treatise on man's ability to better himself, notable for its humorous pragmatism and vivid portrayal of early 18th-century colonial America. Ford 383. Grolier, American 100 21. Green, Benjamin Franklin, Writer and Printer, p. 153. Hart 142. Howes F323 "b." Sabin 25549. Streeter Sale 4171.