page_title: Experiments and Observations on Electricity
section_title: Editions
hierarchical_section_title: Experiments and Observations on Electricity / Editions
caption_attribution_description: English: Book cover 1754 for New Experiments and Observations on Electricity by Benjamin Franklin
context_page_description: Experiments and Observations on Electricity is a mid-eighteenth century book consisting of letters from Benjamin Franklin. These letters concerned Franklin's discoveries about the behavior of electricity based on experimentation and scientific studies. The book came in pamphlet form for the first three English editions. The last two editions were in a book volume with hard covers and a book spine. There were eleven European editions of the book: five English editions, three French editions, and a German, Italian and Latin edition. The publication was well received worldwide. It was considered America's most important scientific book of the eighteenth century.
  The book came about through the activities of scientists at the Royal Society of London. Franklin sent letters to members of the Society about his experiments on electricity and the observations he had made. Most of these letters went to Peter Collinson. Some of these were read at the society's meetings. There was much interest shown, so some of them were sent to a printer to be published in a magazine.
context_section_description: There were eleven editions of Experiments and Observations on Electricity. There were five English editions, three French editions, and an edition each in German, Italian and Latin. The first three English editions were similar, but not identical, and consisted of two or three parts. Each of these separate parts were printed and sold individually as a pamphlet. Each had a slight title change (i.e. "New", "Supplemental") apparently to promote selling additional copies to people that had bought before.
  English edition 1.1 printed April 1751 (pages #1 - 88) and sold by E. Cave at St. John's Gate.
  English edition 1.2 printed 1753 (Supplemental Ex ...) and sold by E. Cave at St. John's Gate.
  English edition 1.3 printed 1754 (New Experiments) and sold by D. Henry at St. John's Gate.
  English edition 2.1 printed 1754 (New Experiments) and sold by R. Cave at St. John's Gate.
  English edition 2.2 printed 1754 (New Experiments) and sold by D. Henry at St. John's Gate.
  English edition 3.1 printed in 1760 (pages #1 - 154) and sold by D. Henry at St. John's Gate.
  English edition 3.2 printed in 1762 (pages #1 - 154) and sold by R. Cave at St. John's Gate.
  English edition 3.3 printed in 1764 (pages #1 - 154) and sold by R. Cave at St. John's Gate.
  English edition 4.0 printed in 1769 for D. Henry and sold by F. Newberry at St. Paul's church.
  English edition 5.0 printed in 1774 for F. Newberry and sold by him at St. Paul's churchyard.
caption: Second edition 1754 of New Experiments of Part I and Part II
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