Experiments and Observations on Electricity

Experiments and Observations on Electricity is a mid-eighteenth century book from letters of Benjamin Franklin. These letters concerned Franklin's discoveries about the behavior of electricity based on experimentation and scientific studies. The book came in pamphlet form for the first three English editions. The last two editions were in a book volume with hard covers and a book spine. There were eleven European editions of the book that consisted of five English editions, three French editions, a German, Italian and Latin edition. The publication was well received worldwide. It was considered America's most important scientific book of the eighteenth century.

The book came about through the activities of scientists at the Royal Society of London. Franklin sent letters to members of the Society about his experiments on electricity and the observations he had made. Most of these letters went to Peter Collinson. Some of these letters were read at meetings. There was much interest shown, so some of them were sent to a printer that published them in a magazine. The public showed interest in Franklin's letters about electricity, so the Society gathered several of the letters together that were written by Franklin. Letters to Collinson from Franklin over a two year period were sent to the printer for publication. This first collection of letters was published in a ninety page pamphlet in 1751. It was soon followed by other parts that were "Supplemental" to the existing edition and eventually a "New" publication was sold from the total of all the "Parts" produced. Each edition expanded by additional Franklin letters being added. It ultimately became a 496 page volume by 1769. The book inspired others to follow in Franklin's footsteps to do further in-depth research on electricity.

Franklin was first attracted to the study of electricity when he saw a showman named Archibald Spencer do magic demonstrations in Boston (1743) and in Philadelphia (1744). He purchased Spencer's equipment and used it for his electricity experiments after these lecture demonstrations. He referred to Archibald as Dr. Spence from Scotland. Then, in 1746, at the age of forty years, Franklin began turning over the affairs of his printing company to his business partner David Hall, and went into semi-retirement so he could carry out research on electricity using initially Spencer's equipment.

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