Name/Title
KEIMER, Samuel. A Brand Pluck'd from the Burning:Description
KEIMER, Samuel. A Brand Pluck'd from the Burning: Exemplify'd in the Unparallel'd Case of Samuel Keimer, Offer'd to the Perusal of the Serious Part of Mankind, and Especially to Those Who Were Ever Acquainted with, or Ever Heard of the Man.
London: Printed, and sold by W. Boreham, 1718. iv,124,12pp. 12mo.
The remarkable autobiography of Samuel Keimer, the Philadelphia printer, published three years before the author left for America, where he employed Benjamin Franklin. Keimer was apprenticed at an early age to the printer, Robert Tookey, in Christopher Court, Threadneedle Street.
In 1713, Keimer was caught up in the religious hysteria surrounding the activities of the so-called French Prophets, and of the ecstatic eccentric, John Lacy, as is vividly described in the opening pages of this narrative. In 1715, Keimer married, became a Quaker, and set up a printing shop in Pater-Noster Row, where he produced more than a dozen pamphlets for
Daniel Defoe, whose literary manner has been detected (e.g. in the DAB) in the present text; as the DNB points out, Keimer at one point includes a letter from Defoe (though without naming him). Keimer's business enterprise soon failed, and he was sent to the Fleet for debt; subsequent attempts to straighten out his affairs resulted only in further imprisonment.
The second half of this narrative provides many details of life in prison, and of Keimer's
activities in the book trade; there is much valuable information here about numerous booksellers whose lives are otherwise obscure.
Keimer's later ventures in Philadelphia, despite his close association with Franklin himself, and from Bradford as well, forced Keimer into bankruptcy, and he went to Barbados, where he
started the island's first newspaper. He is thought to have died about 1738.
"Keimer was a negligible person, maundering, frowzy, and incompetent, half fool, half knave, and wholly pitiable; but the racy account of him in Franklin's AUTOBIOGRAPHY has kept his
memory alive" - DAB.
The present autobiography, however eccentric, is not "pitiable," and is valuable as one of the earliest surviving first-hand accounts of the English printing business.
Bound in at the end of this volume is a twelve-page tract, titled A LETTER FROM JOHN LACY, TO THOMAS DUTTON, BEING REASONS WHY THE FORMER LEFT HIS WIFE AND TOOK E. GRAY THE PROPHETESS TO HIS BED (caption title, no imprint, but dated 1711 at the end).
This very odd pamphlet is by the pseudo-prophet who figures largely in the opening pages of the principal text.
Keimer's autobiography is rather crudely printed, at some points in an exceptionally small typeface. The ESTC lists a handful of copies of the autobiography, but the work is very rare in commerce and this is only the second copy that has been seen for sale.Other Names and Numbers
Other Numbers
Number Type
ReferencesOther Number
ESTC T5928. SMITH, FRIENDS' BOOKS II:17. LOC BX7593 .K4Condition
Overall Condition
Very GoodDate Examined
Nov 14, 2024Notes
Antique half
calf, gilt, and marbled boards, leather label. Leaves B3-4 supplied
in expert facsimile. Final gathering neatly repaired along fore-
edge, not affecting text. lacking leaves B3-4. Minor dust soiling
to outer leaves. Very good.