BOYLE'S MORAL PICTURES; OR POOR RICHARD ILLUSTRATED. BEING LESSONS FOR THE YOUNG AND THE OLD, ON INDUSTRY, TEMEPERENCE, FRUGALITY, & CC. BY THE LATE DR. BENJ. FRANKLIN

Manchester: Bancks & Co, 1790. Manchester: Bancks & Co., no date but circa 1790. Small 8vo., beautiful black full-morocco leather, ornately stamped in gilt; gilt-tooled inner dentelles & marbled endpapers; folded sheet has been backed with linen cloth at some point which has allowed it to survive in very nice condition. An engraved broadsheet with 24 oval vignette engravings by Robert Dighton, plus a portrait of Benjamin Franklin, with each engraving giving a maxim from Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanack"- published in the American colonies from 1732 to 1757. They include some of Poor Richard's best-known maxims, such as: "A small leak will sink a great ship" and "Early to bed and early to rise make a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Possibly the earliest illustrated compilation of Franklin's maxims. This sheet was published by Bancks & Co. in Manchester, presumably shortly after Franklin's death. Somewhat later in the decade, a similar version was issued by the firm of Bowles and Carver of London. In 1859, a Boston firm, Samuel A. Allen and Thomas R. Holland, published a version with the same layout, but updated ornament and typefaces, and a larger rectangular portrait of Franklin Very nice condition (little professional repair head of spine & minor darkening spine; some minor browning to the sheet & backing). Very scarce!