The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 28.

Such is the enormous quantity of material on Franklin's 'French period' (1776-85) that to edit and print the letters that he wrote and received in the four months from 1 November 1778 to 28 February 1779 requires a volume of 708 pages, of which the Index requires no less than seventy. Even so, in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. xxviii, ed. Barbara Oberg (New Haven/London: Yale U.P., 1991; pp. xxi + 708. [pounds]50), as in earlier volumes, there is now a modest measure of selection: letters of less significance are grouped, with a single specimen printed in full; and there is some summarizing, especially of the correspondence of the American Commissioners already published …