51. Poor Richard improved: | Being An | Almanack | And | Ephemeris | [Eight lines] For The | Year of our Lord 1758: | [Ten lines] By Richard Saunders, Philom. | Philadelpeia: | Printed and Sold by B. Franklin; and D. Hall. [1757.]
Franklin says in his Autobiography:
"In 1732 I first publish'd my Almanack, under the name of Richard Saunders; it was continu'd by me about twenty-five years, commonly call'd Poor Richard's Almanac. I endeavor'd to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand, that I reap'd considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand...." The price was five pence. So great was its popularity that it was found necessary to issue three editions in the first month. In 1747 we are told in a note, "This Almanack us'd to contain but 24 Pages, and now has 36; yet the Price is very little advanc'd," and to fit the new conditions the title was changed to Poor Richard Improved.
The Almanac, whose title-page is here facsimiled, was the last of the series edited by Franklin. A collection of the proverbial sentences which had "filled all the little spaces that occur'd between the remarkable days in the calendar" in former issues, were collected into one speech, supposed to be delivered by an old man, named Father Abraham, to the people at an auction sale. "The bringing all these scatter'd counsells thus into a focus enabled them to make a greater impression." The discourse was quickly reprinted, and is famous now under various titles, The Speech of Father Abraham; The Way to Wealth, and La science du bonhomme Richard. It has been translated and reprinted oftener "than any other work from an American pen." "Seventy editions of it," says Mr. Paul L. Ford, "have been printed in English, fifty-six in French, eleven in German, and nine in Italian. It has been translated into Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Welsh, Polish, Gaelic, Russian, Bohemian, Dutch, Catalan, Chinese, Modern Greek and Phonetic writing. It has been printed at least four hundred times, and is to-day as popular as ever."
Franklin borrowed for his pseudonym the name of an English "philomath" of the seventeenth century, because, as he says, he knew "that his name would hardly give it [the Almanack] currency among readers who still looked upon it as dealing in magic, witchcraft and astrology."
In 1747 or 1748 our author-printer entered into partnership with David Hall, who took the sole management of the business until 1766, when the firm was dissolved.
Octavo.
Collation: 36 pp.