Excerpt from The Literary Labors of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 28: An Address Delivered Before the American Philosophical Society at the Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Decease of Its Illustrious Founder and First President, April 17, 1890The gathering of Frankliniana has become Of late years a favorite pursuit of book lovers, and there are many excellent private collections besides the magnificent assemblages of his printed books, manuscripts and imprints in the public libraries of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. The pioneer in this movement was Prof. Justin Winsor, who, in 1869, established a Franklin Alcove in the Boston Public Library, for the reason, as he said at the time, that Franklin is to Boston what Shakespeare is to England.A complete library of Frankliniana, including not only the books by him and about him, but also the products Of his press, would embrace nearly two thousand separate units. Such a collection would possess a very great value in money. 1'About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.