Benjamin Franklin

" ... Tells the story of Franklin's life from his humble beginnings to his emergence as a leading figure in the American colonies. In the process, it creates a portrait of Franklin as the quintessential American. Because of the book, Franklin became a role model for future generations of Americans, who hoped to emulate his rags-to-riches story. The Autobiography has also become one of the central works not just for understanding Franklin but for understanding...

Benjamin Franklin's celebrated Autobiography, published after his death, is one of the greatest autobiographies of all time… but it was incomplete. Franklin ended his life's story in 1757, when he was only fifty-one. He lived another thirty-three full, eventful, and dramatic years, some of the most dramatic years in American history, years in which Franklin was America's advocate in London, represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress,

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Few men could compare to Benjamin Franklin. Virtually self-taught, he excelled as an athlete, a man of letters, a printer, a scientist, a wit, an inventor, an editor, and a writer, and he was probably the most successful diplomat in American history. David Hume hailed him as the first great philosopher and great man of letters in the New World.


The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is one of the most important and influential...