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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... called an Essay on Projects and another of Dr Mather's call'd Essays to do Good, which perhaps gave me a Turn of Thinking as to have an Influence on my Conduct through Life.” This Bookish Turn at length determin'd my Father to make 18 ...
... 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 Bostonian.
... called The New England Courant. The only one before it was the Boston News Letter. I remember his being dissuaded by some of his Friends from the Undertaking, as not likely to succeed, one Newspaper being enough for America. [Now, there ...
... called the New England Courant.” There was a consultation among his Friends what he should do in this Case. Some propos'd to evade the Orderby changing the Name of the Paper; but Inconveniences being seen in that, it was finally ...
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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 |