Legacy Library: Benjamin Franklin

BenjaminFranklin is a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the I See Dead People's Books group.

BenjaminFranklin is also an author. See Benjamin Franklin's author page.

Random books from BenjaminFranklin's library

A seasonable discourse shewing the necessity of maintaining the established religion, in opposition to popery by William Lloyd

A letter to a dissenter from his friend at the Hague, concerning the penal laws and the test : shevving that the popular plea for liberty of conscience is not concerned in that question by Daniel Defoe

On the heat of the water in the Gulf-stream by Sir Charles Blagden

Observations on the statutes chiefly the more ancient, from Magna Charta ... With an appendix; being a proposal for new modelling the statutes by Daines Barrington

The iudgement of Doctor Rainoldes touching the originall of episcopacy more largely confirmed out of antiquity by James Ussher

Ein gründliches Zeugnüss gegen das kürzlich herausgegebene Büchlein, genandt: Pläin Truth. Oder: Lautere Warheit

The rudiments of the Latin tongue or a plain and easy introduction to Latin grammar by Thomas Ruddiman

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Interesting libraries: ErnestHemingway, LeonardodaVinci, MarieAntoinette, WilliamCongreve, WolfgangAMozart

LibraryThing authors: William Bailey (William_Bailey), John Garvey (jgarvey), Richard Price (rixsal), Robert Young (ryoung)

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Member: BenjaminFranklin

CollectionsYour library (3,742)

Reviews23 reviews

TagsPolitics and Government (273), Great Britain (238), Parliament (156), United States (147), History (125), Poetry (113), Church of England (88), Sermons (87), Medicine (82), Electricity (76) — see all tags

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Groups"I See Dead People's Books", Benjamin Franklin's LT Catalog, Libraries of Early America

About meBenjamin Franklin (17 January 1706 – 17 April 1790), Pennsylvania printer, author, inventor, ambassador, scientist, statesman, abolitionist. Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a founder of the Library Company of Philadelphia and of the first fire department in Pennsylvania, among many other accomplishments.

About my libraryFranklin's extensive library is documented in Edwin Wolf 2nd and Kevin J. Hayes, The Library of Benjamin Franklin. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society and Library Company of Philadelphia, 2006 (available digitally here and for sale at the APS webpage) and used to create this LT catalog with the permission of the author and the publishers (American Philosophical Society, Library Company of Philadelphia).

A complete introduction to Franklin's library, including information on the travels taken by the books following Franklin's death, is in Wolf and Hayes, pp. 3-56.

Wolf and Hayes have created extensive annotations for the titles in Franklin's library; those are included in the Comments field for each record in Franklin's LT catalog. Elements generally provided include the catalog number, format, binding, signatures and marginalia (including Franklin's own shelfmarks), detailed provenance information, and the current location of Franklin's copy, if known. A list of the institutional abbreviations used in the book is available here. Further abbreviations, usually for sources, are in Wolf and Hayes, pp. 875-880.

Where the present location of Franklin's copy is known, the catalog number (Wolf and Hayes _) will be followed by an asterisk in parentheses. Where the edition or work is unclear, the catalog number will be followed by a question mark in parentheses.

Reviews: Franklin's reviews have been taken from the Wolf and Hayes annotations, and are usually drawn from either Franklin's correspondence or his Autobiography.

Tags: Wolf and Hayes provide subject-based tag information for most titles, which are included here with minor adjustments as necessary. Where no tags were included, similar tags were added.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Please contact Libraries of Early America coordinator Jeremy Dibbell.