"The first book to belong permanently to literature. It created a man." 

Few men could compare to Benjamin Franklin. Virtually self-taught, he excelled as an athlete, a man of letters, a printer, a scientist, a wit, an inventor, an editor, and a writer, and he was probably the most successful diplomat in American history. David Hume hailed him as the first great philosopher and great man of letters in the New World.

Written initially to guide his son, Franklin's autobiography is a lively, spellbinding account of his unique and eventful life. Stylistically his best work, it has become a classic in world literature, one to inspire and delight readers everywhere.

Franklin, Benjamin, 1706–90, American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer, b. Boston. The only American of the colonial period to earn a European reputation as a natural philosopher, he is best remembered in the United States as a patriot and diplomat.

Like Walt Whitman and Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway, Franklin created a public image so attractive that it obscures the man who made it. Whatever influences of time or place or circumstance combined to produce the successful, whimsical and plain-spoken homespun favorite remembered as Ben Franklin, the projection of this character was a literary exploit of magnitude. "He knew what he was about, this sharp little man," said D. H. Lawrence. "He set up the first dummy American." Certainly Horatio Alger could not have done so well in celebrating the stereotype rise from rags to riches if Franklin had not invented it. It could have bothered neither man that, like almost all of Franklin's devices, the invention was mechanical. This was something never forgotten from his New England boyhood, that everything could be set in a row and counted.  (Amazon.com)

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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin with introduction and notes edited by Charles W. Eliot , the Pennsylvania State University, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18202-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them, and as such is a part of the Pennsylvania State University’s Electronic Classics Series.

Cover design: Jim Manis
Copyright © 2007 The Pennsylvania State University

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES EDITED BY CHARLES W. ELIOT, L.L.D., P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY, NEW YORK (1909)
INTRODUCTORY NOTE

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who published the “New England Courant.” To this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its nominal editor. But the brothers quarreled, and Benjamin ran away, going first to New York, and thence to Philadelphia, where he arrived in October, 1723.

He soon obtained work as a printer, but after a few months he was induced by Governor Keith to go to London, where, finding Keith’s promises empty, he again worked as a compositor till he was brought back to Philadelphia by a merchant named Denman, who gave him a position in his business. On Denman’s death he returned to his former trade, and shortly set up a printing house of his own from which he published “The Pennsylvania Gazette,” to which he contributed many essays, and which he made a medium for agitating a variety of local reforms. In 1732 he began to issue his famous “Poor Richard’s Almanac” for the enrichment of which he borrowed or composed those pithy utterances of worldly wisdom which are the basis of a large part of his popular reputation. In 1758, the year in which he ceases writing for the Almanac, he printed in it “Father Abraham’s Sermon,” now regarded as the most famous piece of literature produced in Colonial America.

Meantime Franklin was concerning himself more and more with public affairs. He set forth a scheme for an Academy, which was taken up later and finally developed into the University of Pennsylvania; and he founded an “American Philosophical Society” for the purpose of enabling scientific men to communicate their discoveries to one another. He himself had already begun his electrical researches, which, with other scientific inquiries, he called on in the intervals of money-making and politics to the end of his life. In 1748 he sold his business in order to get leisure for study, having now acquired comparative wealth; and in a few years he had made discoveries that gave him a reputation with the learned throughout Europe. In politics he proved very able both as an administrator and as a controversialist; but his record as an office-holder is stained by the use he made of his position to advance his relatives. His most notable service in home politics was his reform of the postal system; but his fame as a statesman rests chiefly on his services in connection with the relations of the Colonies with Great Britain, and later with France. In 1757 he was sent to England to protest against the influence of the Penns in the government of the colony, and for five years he remained there, striving to enlighten the people and the ministry of England as to Colonial conditions.

On his return to America he played an honorable part in the Paxton affair, through which he lost his seat in the Assembly; but in 1764 he was again despatched to England as agent for the colony, this time to petition the King to resume the government from the hands of the proprietors. In London he actively opposed the proposed Stamp Act, but lost the credit for this and much of his popularity through his securing for a friend the office of stamp agent in America. Even his effective work in helping to obtain the repeal of the act left him still a suspect; but he continued his efforts to present the case for the Colonies as the troubles thickened toward the crisis of the Revolution. In 1767 he crossed to France, where he was received with honor; but before his return home in 1775 he lost his position as postmaster through his share in divulging to Massachusetts the famous letter of Hutchinson and Oliver. On his arrival in Philadelphia he was chosen a member of the Continental Congress and in 1777 he was dispatched to France as commissioner for the United States. Here he remained till 1785, the favorite of French society; and with such success did he conduct the affairs of his country that when he finally returned he received a place only second to that of Washington as the champion of American independence. He died on April 17, 1790.

The first five chapters of the Autobiography were composed in England in 1771, continued in 1784-5, and again in 1788, at which date he brought it down to 1757. After a most extraordinary series of adventures, the original form of the manuscript was finally printed by Mr. John Bigelow, and is here reproduced in recognition of its value as a picture of one of the most notable personalities of Colonial times, and of its acknowledged rank as one of the great autobiographies of the world.

Read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Online

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
In his own words, Franklin's life as a printer, inventor, scientist, and politician, with an introduction, a timeline and related links.
Edited by Charles W. Eliot, L.L.D

Ben Franklin was many things, but perhaps more than anything else he was a politician, and there is no more reason to expect an unbiased autobiography from Franklin than from any other politician. In a 1961 introduction, L. Jesse Lemisch wrote, "Franklin of the Memoirs and of Poor Richard is by no means the whole man. This Franklin is a persona, a conscious literary creation presented for our emulation."

But if you can't find the unvarnished truth here, you can certainly find Franklin. It is Franklin's voice that makes the book worth reading, and his descriptions of the world he knew are not to be missed. The EServer edition is in eight parts...
     
A Note on the text: The EServer edition of Franklin's autobiography originated with the Gutenberg Project text, from an edition originally edited by Charles W. Eliot, L.L.D., and published by P.F. Collier & Son Company, New York in 1909.

Charles W. Eliot was the president of Harvard University for forty years, and editor of the fifty volume Harvard Classics, a collection that educator William Allan Neilson called "a reading course unparalleled in comprehensiveness and authority." Franklin's autobiography was the first work in the first volume of this set; it served to illustrate Eliot's ideal of the self-educated citizen.

Changes for this edition include the use of HTML format, the addition of margins and italics, and the division of Franklin's text into eight parts. (The original work did not have chapters.)

CHIEF EVENTS IN FRANKLIN’S LIFE

Ending, as it does, with the year 1757, the autobiography leavesfacts unrecorded. It has seemed advisable, therefore, to detail the chief events in Franklin’s life, from the beginning, in the following list:

1706 He is born, in Boston, and baptized in the Old South Church.

1714 At the age of eight, enters the Grammar School.

1716 Becomes his father’s assistant in the tallow-chandlery business.

1718 Apprenticed to his brother James, printer.

1721 Writes ballads and peddles them, in printed form, in the streets; contributes, anonymously, to the “New England Courant,” and temporarily edits that paper; becomes a free-thinker, and a vegetarian.

1723 Breaks his indenture and removes to Philadelphia; obtaining employment in Keimer’s printing-office; abandons vegetarianism.

1724 Is persuaded by Governor Keith to establish himself independently, and goes to London to buy type; works at his trade there, and publishes “Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.”

1726 Returns to Philadelphia; after serving as clerk in a dry goods store, becomes manager of Keimer’s printing-house.

1727 Founds the Junto, or “Leathern Apron” Club.

1728 With Hugh Meredith, opens a printing-office.

1729 Becomes proprietor and editor of the “Pennsylvania Gazette”; prints, anonymously, “Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency”; opens a stationer’s shop.

1730 Marries Rebecca Read.

1731 Founds the Philadelphia Library.

1732 Publishes the first number of “Poor Richard’s Almanac” under the pseudonym of “Richard Saunders.” The Almanac, which continued for twenty-five years to contain his witty, worldly-wise sayings, played a very large part in bringing together and molding the American character which was at that time made up of so many diverse and scattered types.

1738 Begins to study French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin.

1736 Chosen clerk of the General Assembly; forms the Union Fire Company of Philadelphia.

1737 Elected to the Assembly; appointed Deputy Postmaster-General; plans a city police.

1742 Invents the open, or “Franklin,” stove.

1743 Proposes a plan for an Academy, which is adopted 1749 and develops into the University of Pennsylvania.

1744 Establishes the American Philosophical Society.

1746 Publishes a pamphlet, “Plain Truth,” on the necessity for disciplined defense, and forms a military company; begins electrical experiments.

1748 Sells out his printing business; is appointed on the Commission of the Peace, chosen to the Common Council, and to the Assembly.

1749 Appointed a Commissioner to trade with the Indians.

1751 Aids in founding a hospital.

1752 Experiments with a kite and discovers that lightning is an electrical discharge.

1753 Awarded the Copley medal for this discovery, and elected a member of the Royal Society; receives the degree of M.A. from Yale and Harvard. Appointed joint Postmaster-General.

1754 Appointed one of the Commissioners from Pennsylvania to the Colonial Congress at Albany; proposes a plan for the union of the colonies.

1755 Pledges his personal property in order that supplies may be raised for Braddock’s army; obtains a grant from the Assembly in aid of the Crown Point expedition; carries through a bill establishing a voluntary militia; is appointed Colonel, and takes the field.

1757 Introduces a bill in the Assembly for paving the streets of Philadelphia; publishes his famous “Way to Wealth”; goes to England to plead the cause of the Assembly against the Proprietaries; remains as agent for Pennsylvania; enjoys the friendship of the scientific and literary men of the kingdom.

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