From Benjamin Franklin to John Nourse, 13 January 1758

To John Nourse5

Reprinted from Stan V. Henkels, Catalogue No. 965 (June 7–8, 1907), p. 15.6

Craven Street, Jan. 13, 1758

Sir

Please to send by the Bearer, Pere Charlevoix’s History of the French Settlement in America.7 Yours &c.

B Franklin

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

5. John Nourse (d. 1780), dealer in French and scientific books, and “for many years bookseller to his Majesty.” H. R. Plomer, G. H. Bushnell, E. R. McDix, A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1726 to 1775 (Oxford, 1932), p. 183; Gent. Mag., L (1780), 203.

6. The ALS was again offered for sale in The Month at Goodspeed’s, XXXIV, No. 3 (Dec. 1962), 66, with a facsimile reproduction (p. 68) confirming the text as quoted in the Henkels catalogue. Another letter from BF to Nourse, March 18, 1758, not found, was offered for sale by Maggs Bros., Catalogue No. 220 (June 1906), p. 60.

7. On June 28, 1758, BF paid Nourse £4 18s. “for books,” perhaps including Père Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix’s Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France … (3 vols., Paris, 1744), also published in a six-volume edition, but not translated into English until 1761. “Account of Expences,” p. 33; PMHB, LV (1931), 112.

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Source Project: Franklin Papers
Title: From Benjamin Franklin to John Nourse, 13 January 1758
Author: Franklin, Benjamin
Recipient: Nourse, John
Date: 13 January 1758

Reference

Cite as: “From Benjamin Franklin to John Nourse, 13 January 1758,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-07-02-0151. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 7, October 1, 1756 through March 31, 1758, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963, pp. 358–359.]