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. |
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... he would have recognized from Franklin's model that it is not enough to be understood; one must be careful of being misunderstood. GROWING UP BOSTONIAN JANUARY 1706–APRIL 1722 One January morning in 10 FRANKLIN ON FRANKLIN.
Paul M. Zall. GROWING UP BOSTONIAN JANUARY 1706–APRIL 1722 One January morning in 1706, Franklin's mother went to church and at intermission went home to birth him, then took him back to church for the rest of the day. Thus he could ...
... them all away and built our Wharff. The next Morning the Workmen were surpriz'd at Missing the Stones; they were found in our Wharff, Enquiry was made after the Removers; we were discovered & complain'd 15 Growing Up Bostonian.
... Morning; or on Sundays, when Icontrived to be in the Printing House alone, evading as much as I could the usual Attendance on publick Worship, which my Father used to exact of me when I was under his Care: And which indeed I still ...
... Morning & communicated to his Intimates, when they call'd in as Usual. They read it, commented on it in my Hearing, and I had the exquisite Pleasure, of finding it had their Approbation, and that by their different Guesses at the Author ...
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 |