Read about the fascinating life of Benjamin Franklin, prolific philosopher, inventor, and Founding Father of the United States, in this beautifully illustrated version of his autobiography. American icon Benjamin Franklin is known for many things: he published the famous Poor Richard's Almanack, helped found the world-famous University of Pennsylvania, and was the first Postmaster General of the United States. His iconography is everywhere. His likeness adorns, among other things, the United States' hundred-dollar bill. Franklin was a wildly intriguing personality, as his autobiography makes plain. From his hoarding of his pay as a teenager to buy books, to his disapproval of habits like drinking beer, from his work as a printer, to his experiments with electricity, this is the story of Franklin's life--told as only he could tell it--in the years before the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin's writings represent a career of literary, scientific, and political efforts which extended nearly the entire eighteenth century and the birth of the United States. This heavily illustrated version of Franklin's autobiography includes his reflections on diverse questions such as philosophy and religion, social status, electricity, American national characteristics, war, and the status of women. A classic in the American canon, Franklin's autobiography is a must-read for any serious student of American history.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his Memoirs. Although it had a torturous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of autobiography ever written.

"Printer and publisher, author and educator, scientist and inventor, statesman and philanthropist, Benjamin Franklin was the very embodiment of the American self-made man. In 1771, at the age of 65, he sat down to write his autobiography, "having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity." The result is a classic of American literature." "On the eve of the tercentenary of Franklin's birth, the university he founded has selected the Autobiography for the Penn Reading Project. Each year for the past fifteen years, the University of Pennsylvania has chosen a single work that the entire incoming class, and a large segment of the faculty and staff, read and discuss together. For this occasion the University of Pennsylvania Press is publishing this special edition of Franklin's Autobiography, including a new preface by University president Amy Gutmann and an introduction by distinguished scholar Peter Conn. The volume also includes four short essays by noted Penn professors as well as a chronology of Franklin's life and the text of Franklin's Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, a document resulting in the establishment of an institution of higher education that ultimately became the University of Pennsylvania." "No area of human endeavor escaped Franklin's keen attentions. His ideas and values, as Amy Gutmann notes, have shaped the modern University of Pennsylvania profoundly, "more profoundly than have the founders of any other major university of college in the United States." Franklin believed that he had been born too soon. Readers will recognize that his spirit lives on at Penn today."--BOOK JACKET.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears 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 autobiography ever written.

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In this inspiring autobiography, Benjamin Franklin not only recounts a significant portion of his beautiful and successful life but also shares his personal formula for success. Franklin advocated sacrifice, hard work, thrift, frugality, and continuous education as determinants for individual and collective prosperity. Franklin's basic idea that, no matter who you are, with hard work and thrift, you can achieve prosperity and greatness fully embodies the "American dream." For all those involved in business development or collective projects, reading this ebook is highly recommended. Franklin tells us how he created and encouraged numerous enterprises in his city, Philadelphia, in the then colony of Pennsylvania, and in his country. Just to name a few of the enterprises initiated by him: the first library, the first book club, the first militia, the first hospital in Philadelphia, and often in the United States. Franklin was the epitome of an honest, upright, and competent entrepreneur in both public administration and in the private management of his printing press and newspaper. Benjamin Franklin will forever be a great example of a citizen, entrepreneur, and public figure.

How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears 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 at which he wrote them. There are actual breaks in the narrative between the first three parts, but Part Three's narrative continues into Part Four without an authorial break (only an editorial one).Part One of the Autobiography is addressed to Franklin's son William, at that time (1771) Royal Governor of New Jersey. While in England at the estate of the Bishop of St Asaph in Twyford, Franklin, now 65 years old, begins by saying that it may be agreeable to his son to know some of the incidents of his father's life; so with a week's uninterrupted leisure, he is beginning to write them down for William. He starts with some anecdotes of his grandfather, uncles, father and mother. He deals with his childhood, his fondness for reading, and his service as an apprentice to his brother James Franklin, a Boston printer and the publisher of the New England Courant. After improving his writing skills through study of the Spectator by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele, he writes an anonymous paper and slips it under the door of the printing house by night. Not knowing its author, James and his friends praise the paper and it is published in the Courant, which encourages Ben to produce more essays (the "Silence Dogood" essays) which are also published. When Ben reveals his authorship, James is angered, thinking the recognition of his papers will make Ben too vain. James and Ben have frequent disputes and Ben seeks for a way to escape from working under James.