Franklin on FranklinPaul M. Zall Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ends in 1758, some thirty years before he died. Those three decades included some of the statesman's greatest triumphs, yet instead of including them in his memoir, Franklin spent the years continually revising his original text. Paul Zall has created a new autobiographical account of Franklin's entire life. By returning to a newly recovered early draft of the Autobiography, he strips away later layers of moralizing to reveal the story as Franklin first wrote it: how a poor boy from Boston used words and hard work to become America's first world-class citizen. To cover Franklin's career as a diplomat and as the only signatory of all three key documents of the American Revolution, Zall interweaves autobiographical comments from Franklin's personal letters and private journals. Franklin emerges as different from the common perception of him as a crafty "Man of Reason." His raw words reveal the bitter infighting among both British and American politicians and his personal struggle with his son's choice of the opposite side in the fight for the future of two countries. Without the veneer of second thoughts, his lifelong struggle to control his temper carries greater poignancy, as do his later years spent nursing his wounded pride. Susceptible to both fallibility and frustration, the honest Franklin depicted in his own words nevertheless remains an uncommon common man, perhaps even more so than previously thought. |
From inside the book
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... Account of my life,” he said, adding that it would be published after his death. Who more capable of presenting himself to posterity than an expert writer who had practiced the art from childhood? Nevertheless, it would be another three ...
... account for his rapid pace in a time when the school required facility in both writing and reading Latin.” My early Readiness in learning to read (which must have been very early, as I do not remember when I could not read) and the ...
... account encourag'd me, & put me on composing two of them. One was called the Light House Tragedy & contain'd an Account of the drowning of Capt. Worthilake & his Two Daughters; the other was a Sailor Song on the Taking of 19 Growing Up ...
... Account of Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many Instances of the same Method. I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my Contradiction, and put on the humble Enquirer & Doubter. And being then a real Doubter in many ...
... Accounts of the Approbation their Papers were receiv'd with, I resolv'd to try my Hand among them. But suspecting that my Brother would object to printing any Thing of mine in his Paper if he knew it to be such, I contriv'd to disguise ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
26 | |
31 | |
36 | |
41 | |
49 | |
25 December 172421 July 1726 | 59 |
1749 | 156 |
17481753 | 160 |
17431753 | 170 |
1754 | 178 |
1756 | 194 |
17561757 | 205 |
17571762 | 218 |
17571765 | 226 |
23 July11 October 1726 | 69 |
Future 17261727 | 79 |
May 1728September 1730 | 89 |
17291730 | 95 |
17311732 | 103 |
17311754 | 120 |
17361739 | 130 |
17391740 | 138 |
1740s | 146 |
17661770 | 232 |
17701774 | 240 |
17741775 | 250 |
17751785 | 259 |
17851790 | 270 |
Notes | 289 |
Selected Bibliography | 299 |
Index | 303 |