Experiments and Observations on Electricity

No book clubs; the governing trap here is the phrase 'first complete edition'. Five English editions appeared in Franklin's lifetime: the first, 1751, with the additional parts of 1753 and 1754; the second, 1754 (Parts I and II only); the third, 1760, with further parts in 1762 and 1764; the fourth, 1769; and the fifth, 1774. The 1769 fourth edition (London: for David Henry, sold by Francis Newbery) states on its title-page 'The Whole corrected, methodized, improved, and now first collected into one Volume', contains seven engraved plates of which two fold, and is routinely and accurately catalogued by dealers as the 'first complete edition' — but it is the fourth edition, not the first, and the wording misleads. Practical rule: a single volume with multiple plates, or any Henry/Newbery imprint, is 1769 or later; the 1751 first is a thin quarto with a single folding plate and Cave's St. John's Gate imprint.