Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography

Benjamin Franklin was a writer, inventor, political theorist, diplomat, and Founding Father of the United States. He wrote under the pen name of Poor Richard from 1732 to 1757. Joyce E. Chaplin is James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University. She has taught at five different universities on two continents and an island and in a maritime studies program in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. She is the author of An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 17301815 (1993), Subject Matter: Technology, the Body, and Science on the Anglo-American Frontier, 15001676 (2001), The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius (2006), and Benjamin Franklins Political Arithmetic: A Materialist View of Humanity (2009).

Introduction Acknowledgments Notes on the Text Maps: Franklin's Boston, Philadelphia, and London THE TEXT OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY The Autobiography "A Quire Book of Letters" The Outline of the Autobiography A Guide to People Mentioned in the Autobiography CONTEXTS Journal of a Voyage, 1726 Excerpts from Franklin's Letters Mentioning the Autobiography "Authentic Memoir of Dr. Franklyn" EXCERPTS FROM FRANKLIN'S WRITINGS ON AMBITION AND FAME, WEALTH, AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT AMBITION AND FAME From Poor Richard Improved, 1750 From Poor Richard Improved, Jan. 1758 To Sarah (Franklin) Bache, June 3, 1779 From Benjamin Vaughn, May 1785 From Jane Mecom, July 21, 1786 WEALTH To Cadwallader Colden, Sept. 29, 1748 To William Strahan, June 2, 1750 To Jane Mecom, Dec. 30, 1770 To Thomas Cushing, June 10, 1771 Benjamin Vaughn to Lord Shelburne, Nov. 24, 1782 To Robert Morris, Dec. 25, 1783 To Benjamin Vaughn, July 26, 1784 Last Will and Testament, 1788, and Codicil, 1789 SELF-IMPROVEMENT Franklin's Epitaph, 1728 Franklin's Junto Query on Human Perfection, 1732 [Poor Richard on Self-Improvement, 1749] Rules for Making Oneself a Disagreeable Companion, 1749 To Lord Kames, May 3, 1760 To Abiah Franklin, Apr. 12, 1750 To Joseph Priestley, Sept. 19, 1772 CRITICISM CONTEMPORARY OPINIONS Immanuel Kant [The Modern Prometheus] David Hume To Franklin, May 10, 1762 Franklin in the Cockpit The Pennsylvania Gazette Report, 1774 Benjamin Vaughn's Account, 1779 Edmund Burke To Count Patrick D'Arcy, Oct. 5, 1775 From the New-Jersey Gazette, Dec. 31, 1777 Peter Oliver From Origins & Progress of the American Rebellion Richard Price To Franklin, May 1790 Honor Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau Eulogy for Franklin before the National Assembly of France, 1790 Jos Antonio de Alzate y Ramrez A Brief Eulogy for Benjamin Franklin, 1790 Jos Francisco Correia da Serra Eulogy for Franklin to the Royal Academy of Sciences, Lisbon, 1791 John Adams On Franklin, May 15, 1811 NINETEENTH-CENTURY OPINIONS Francis, Lord Jeffrey From the Edinburgh Review, 1806 Charles Brockden Brown From Literary Magazine, 1806 John Keats To George and Georgiana Keats, Oct. 14-31, 1818 Humphry Davy Historical Sketch of Electrical Discovery Edgar Allan Poe The Business Man Leigh Hunt From Hunt's Autobiography Herman Melville From Israel Potter Mark Twain The Late Benjamin Franklin Empress Shken of Japan [A Franklinian Poem], c. 1890 Frederick Jackson Turner FromThe Dial, May 1887 William Dean Howells From Editor's Study, Apr. 1888 From Editor's Study, July 1888 From Editor's Study, Jan. 1890 From Editor's Easy Chair, Oct. 1905 RECENT OPINIONS Max Weber From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism D. H. Lawrence Benjamin Franklin W. Somerset Maugham [The Classic Books of America] I. B. Cohen Franklin and Science David Levin The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: The Puritan Experimenter in Life and Art Michael Warner Franklin: The Representational Politics of the Man of Letters Peter Stallybrass Benjamin Franklin: Printed Collections and Erasable Writing Benjamin Franklin: A Chronology Selected Bibliography Index