Franklin on Franklin

Front Cover
Paul M. Zall
University Press of Kentucky, Oct 17, 2014 - Biography & Autobiography - 328 pages

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.

 

Contents

Ben Franklin Revising
1
January 1706April 1722
11
April 1722September 1723
26
25 September1 October 1723
31
October 1723May 1724
36
April 25June 1724
41
JuneNovember 1724
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
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2014)

Paul M. Zall (1922-2010), Emeritus Professor of English at California State University at Los Angeles, was a research scholar at the Huntington Library. He is the author of many books including Lincoln on Lincoln, Jefferson on Jefferson, and Franklin on Franklin.

Bibliographic information