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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... wish'd to imitate it. With that View, I took some of the Papers, & making short Hints of the Sentiment in each Sentence, laid them by a few Days, and then without looking at the Book, try'd to compleat the Papers again, by expressing ...
... slept at a miserable Inn, where I staid all Night, beginning now to wish I had never left home. I cut so miserable a Figure too, that I found I was suspected to be some runaway Servant, and in danger 33 On the Road to Philadelphia.
... Wishes to see us on good Terms together, & that we might live for the future as Brothers, he said, I had insulted him in such a Manner before his People that he could never forget or forgive it. In this however he was mistaken. My ...
... wish'd to be employ'd in some Counting House; but whether they discover'd his Dramming by his Breath, or by his Behaviour, tho' he had some Recommendations, he met with no Success in any Application, and continu'd Lodging & Boarding at ...
... it appear'd to me to have great Merit. Now, says he, Osborne never will allow any Merit in anything of mine, but makes 1000 Criticisms out of mere Malice & Envy. I wish therefore you would 53 Plotting to Deceive & Being Deceived.
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 |