Get Rich Quick
FRANKLIN, Benjamin.
The Art of making Money plenty in every Man’s Pocket … London, Darton, Harvey, and Darton, and York, William Alexander, 1817.
16mo, ff. 8, engraved throughout, printed on one side only, with three facing spreads; stitching loose, in the original printed papers wrappers (over earlier printed card); ownership inscription to title ‘William Gardner Seymour Oct 1862'.
First English edition in book form, scarce, of a popular rebus based on Franklin’s economic advice in Poor Richard’s Almanack. It was first published as a broadside engraving and then as a jigsaw by John Wallis 1791, and afterwards saw wide circulation in America throughout the nineteenth century, though often as a print rather than a book. Here the rebus is printed over seven pages, with the key text below.
Library Hub records V&A only; there is also a adulterated copy at the Wellcome, all sheets cut out and pasted to a mount, omitting the key text; OCLC adds nine copies in North America.
Darton G365 (1).