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Experiments and Observations on Electricity

Experiments and Observations on Electricity is a mid-eighteenth century book consisting of letters from 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: five English editions, three French editions, and 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 were read at the society's meetings. There was much interest shown, so some of them were sent to a printer to be published in a magazine. (from wikipedia.org)