Benjamin Franklin: The First Civilized American[A]t the age of 24, Benjamin becomes the head of his own business, without having saved any money, without having worked unusually hard, without having omitted any of the pleasures beloved by imaginative youth, and without having lived up to any of the maxims for which he is later to become renowned. -from "Chapter XI: Philadelphia's Youngest Master-Printer" It's with equal measures of unstinting respect and gentle reproach that renowned biographer Phillips Russell tackles the life of one of the legendary figures of colonial America and the Revolution, a figure he deems "mirthful, generous, open-minded, learned, tolerant, and humor-loving...the first American man of the world." A delight to read, this is a cheerful, warmly admiring recounting of the story of the printer and the politician, the debaucher and the diplomat, a man whose "chief weakness" was a lack of aptitude for mathematics, who was "not above looking to the church to do police duty over his womenfolk," who was "midwife at the birth of the world's first great republic." Profusely illustrated and bursting with the author's enthusiasm as well as its subject's abundant personality, this is a classic of American historical literature. American journalist CHARLES PHILLIPS RUSSELL (1883-1974) was a newspaper editor and professor of English and journalism at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He is the author of numerous books, including biographies of Thomas Jefferson, John Paul Jones, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William the Conqueror. |
Contents
1 | |
5 | |
25 | |
The Boy Publisher | 32 |
Exile | 42 |
The New Home | 46 |
The Return from Exile | 54 |
London and The Dangerous Time of Youth | 66 |
Projects Ripen and Increase | 163 |
Franklins Humorous Year | 170 |
Army General and Ambassador | 175 |
Conquests in England | 187 |
Political Slings and Arrows | 197 |
In London for the Third Time | 203 |
Franklin Meets the High Priest of the Hell Fire Club | 214 |
The Attack in the Cockpit | 228 |
First Studies of Men and Things | 79 |
Franklin Begins to Find Himself | 83 |
A Young Man States His Creed of Life | 93 |
Philadelphias Youngest MasterPrinter | 105 |
Money Making and Saving | 120 |
Marriage | 124 |
The Era of Poor Richard | 129 |
First Ventures in Politics | 145 |
The First Thrills from Science | 150 |
The Challenge to the Clouds | 158 |
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Page 20 - This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade...
Page 22 - He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behaviour, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong.