Thomas Jefferson’s “Original Rough Draught” of the Declaration of Independence.

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• ARTIST: Charles Toppan

• PUBLISHER: Philadelphia: Published in Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Thomas Jefferson Randolph.

• MEDIUM: Steel engraving

  DATE: 1829

• EDITION SIZE: Paper size 13 1/2 x 8 3/8" ( 34.3 x 21.2 cm)

• DESCRIPTION: This engraved facsimile preserves Thomas Jefferson’s earliest surviving draft of the Declaration of Independence, produced in 1829 by the Philadelphia engraver Charles Toppan. The four engraved sheets reproduce in full Jefferson’s “Original Rough Draught” of June–July 1776, allowing readers to see Jefferson’s words before they were shaped by the Committee of Five and further revised by Congress. The draft is marked by crossings out, insertions, and marginal notes that reveal the collaborative editing of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson himself later annotated his manuscript, indicating which changes were his own and which came from his colleagues. Among the most famous of these is Franklin’s refinement of Jefferson’s phrase “sacred and undeniable” into “self evident,” a choice that helped frame the Declaration’s enduring statement of human equality. Complete four page sets of Toppan’s facsimile are seldom encountered, as many impressions were later lost, separated, or damaged. The work is recognized as the first engraved reproduction of Jefferson’s “Rough Draught,” the four page manuscript now preserved in the Library of Congress. That draft, bearing Jefferson’s revisions along with the notable input of Adams and Franklin, stands as the earliest substantially intact version of the Declaration, earlier attempts surviving only in scattered fragments.

• ADDITIONAL INFO:

• CONDITION:

• REFERENCE: Howes R-60; Sabin 35891; Shaw & Shoemaker 39133.

• CATEGORIES: 18th-19th Century Subjects , Historical , Revolutionary War