An autobiography of benjamin franklin was written by
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
book by Benjamin Franklin
Cover of the first English edition of | |
| Author | Benjamin Franklin |
|---|---|
| Original&#;title | Mémoires de la vie privée de Benjamin Franklin |
| Language | American English |
| Genre | Autobiography |
| Publisher | Buisson, Paris (French edition) J. Parson's, London (First English reprint) |
Publication date | |
| Publication place | United States |
Published&#;in English | |
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from to ; however, Franklin appear to have called the work his Memoirs. Although it had a tortuous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written.
Franklin's account of his life is divided into four parts, reflecting the different periods during which he wrote them. There are actual breaks between the first three parts of the narrative, but Part Three's narrative continues into Part Four without an authorial break. The work ends with events in his life from the year when he was 52 (Franklin would die in at age 84).
In the "Introduction" of the publication of the Autobiography, editor F. W. Pi
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The authoritative edition of Franklin’s autobiography, with a foreword by the eminent Franklin scholar Edmund S. Morgan
“The best and most beautiful edition [of the Autobiography].”—J. H. Plumb, New York Review of Books
“Among the many editions available—read Yale’s. Its text is the most reliable (the Franklin papers are at Yale) and its supplementary material is uniformly useful.”—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
A classic of eighteenth-century American history and literature, Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography has had an influence perhaps unequaled by any other book by an American writer. Written ostensibly as a letter to his son William, Franklin’s Autobiography offers his reflections on philosophy and religion, politics, war, education, material success, and the status of women.
Prepared by the editors of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, this definitive edition is drawn with scrupulous care from the original manuscript in Franklin’s handwriting, now in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. The introduction by Leonard W. Labaree places the autobiography in literary and historical contexts. In a new foreword, eminent Franklin scholar Edmund S. Morgan writes about Franklin’s dual allegiance as an American and a subject of an English king—and h
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