Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
University of Pennsylvania. He organized a postal system for the
colonies, which was the basis of the present United States Post
Office. Bancroft, the eminent historian, called him "the greatest
diplomatist of his century." He perfected the Albany Plan of Union for
the colonies. He is the only statesman who signed the Declaration of
Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace
with England, and the Constitution. As a writer, he has produced, in
his _Autobiography_ and in _Poor Richard's Almanac_, two works that
are not surpassed by similar writing. He received honorary degrees
from Harvard and Yale, from Oxford and St. Andrews, and was made a
fellow of the Royal Society, which awarded him the Copley gold medal
for improving natural knowledge. He was one of the eight foreign
associates of the French Academy of Science.
The careful study of the _Autobiography_ is also valuable because of
the style in which it is written. If Robert Louis Stevenson is right
in believing that his remarkable style was acquired by imitation then
the youth who would gain the power to express his ideas clearly,
forcibly, and interestingly cannot do better than to study Franklin's
method. Franklin's fame in the scientific world was due almost as much
to his modest, simple, and sincere manner of presenting his
discoveries and to the precision and clearness of the style in which
he described his experiments, as to the results he was able to
announce. Sir Humphry Davy, the celebrated English chemist, himself an
excellent literary critic as well as a great scientist, said: "A
singular felicity guided all Franklin's researches, and by very small
means he established very grand truths. The style and manner of his
publication on electricity are almost as worthy of admiration as the
doctrine it contains."
Franklin's place in literature is hard to determine because he was not
primarily a literary man. His aim in his writings as in his life work
was to be helpful to his fellow-men. For him writing was never an end
in itself, but always a means to an end. Yet his success as a
scientist, a statesman, and a diplomat, as well as socially, was in no
little part due to his ability as a writer. "His letters charmed all,
and made his correspondence eagerly sought. His political arguments
were the joy of his party and the dread of his opponents. His
scientific discoveries were explained in language at once so simple
and so clear that plow-boy and exquisite could follow his thought or
his experiment to its conclusion."[1]
[1] _The Many-Sided Franklin._ Paul L. Ford.
As far as American literature is concerned, Franklin has no
contemporaries. Before the _Autobiography_ only one literary work of
importance had been produced in this country--Cotton Mather's
_Magnalia_, a church history of New England in a ponderous, stiff
style. Franklin was the first American author to gain a wide and
permanent reputation in Europe. The _Autobiography_, _Poor Richard_,
_Father Abraham's Speech_ or _The Way to Wealth_, as well as some of
the _Bagatelles_, are as widely known abroad as any American writings.
Franklin must also be classed as the first American humorist.
English literature of the eighteenth century was characterized by the
development of prose. Periodical literature reached its perfection
early in the century in _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_ of Addison
and Steele. Pamphleteers flourished throughout the period. The
homelier prose of Bunyan and Defoe gradually gave place to the more
elegant and artificial language of Samuel Johnson, who set the
standard for prose writing from 1745 onward. This century saw the
beginnings of the modern novel, in Fielding's _Tom Jones_,
Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_, Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_, and
Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. Gibbon wrote _The Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire_, Hume his _History of England_, and Adam Smith
the _Wealth of Nations_.
In the simplicity and vigor of his style Franklin more nearly
resembles the earlier group of writers. In his first essays he was not
an inferior imitator of Addison. In his numerous parables, moral
allegories, and apologues he showed Bunyan's influence. But Franklin
was essentially a journalist. In his swift, terse style, he is most
like Defoe, who was the first great English journalist and master of
the newspaper narrative. The style of both writers is marked by
homely, vigorous expression, satire, burlesque, repartee. Here the
comparison must end. Defoe and his contemporaries were authors. Their
vocation was writing and their success rests on the imaginative or
creative power they displayed. To authorship Franklin laid no claim.
He wrote no work of the imagination. He developed only incidentally a
style in many respects as remarkable as that of his English
contemporaries. He wrote the best autobiography in existence, one of
the most widely known collections of maxims, and an unsurpassed series
of political and social satires, because he was a man of unusual scope
of power and usefulness, who knew how to tell his fellow-men the
secrets of that power and that usefulness.
The Story of the Autobiography
The account of how Franklin's _Autobiography_ came to be written and
of the adventures of the original manuscript forms in itself an
interesting story. The _Autobiography_ is Franklin's longest work,
and yet it is only a fragment. The first part, written as a letter to
his son, William Franklin, was not intended for publication; and the
composition is more informal and the narrative more personal than in
the second part, from 1730 on, which was written with a view to
publication. The entire manuscript shows little evidence of revision.
In fact, the expression is so homely and natural that his grandson,
William Temple Franklin, in editing the work changed some of the
phrases because he thought them inelegant and vulgar.
Franklin began the story of his life while on a visit to his friend,
Bishop Shipley, at Twyford, in Hampshire, southern England, in 1771.
He took the manuscript, completed to 1731, with him when he returned
to Philadelphia in 1775. It was left there with his other papers when
he went to France in the following year, and disappeared during the
confusion incident to the Revolution. Twenty-three pages of closely
written manuscript fell into the hands of Abel James, an old friend,
who sent a copy to Franklin at Passy, near Paris, urging him to
complete the story. Franklin took up the work at Passy in 1784 and
carried the narrative forward a few months. He changed the plan to
meet his new purpose of writing to benefit the young reader. His work
was soon interrupted and was not resumed until 1788, when he was at
home in Philadelphia. He was now old, infirm, and suffering, and was
still engaged in public service. Under these discouraging conditions
the work progressed slowly. It finally stopped when the narrative
reached the year 1757. Copies of the manuscript were sent to friends
of Franklin in England and France, among others to Monsieur Le
Veillard at Paris.
The first edition of the _Autobiography_ was published in French at
Paris in 1791. It was clumsily and carelessly translated, and was
imperfect and unfinished. Where the translator got the manuscript is
not known. Le Veillard disclaimed any knowledge of the publication.
From this faulty French edition many others were printed, some in
Germany, two in England, and another in France, so great was the
demand for the work.
In the meantime the original manuscript of the _Autobiography_ had
started on a varied and adventurous career. It was left by Franklin
with his other works to his grandson, William Temple Franklin, whom
Franklin designated as his literary executor. When Temple Franklin
came to publish his grandfather's works in 1817, he sent the original
manuscript of the _Autobiography_ to the daughter of Le Veillard in
exchange for her father's copy, probably thinking the clearer
transcript would make better printer's copy. The original manuscript
thus found its way to the Le Veillard family and connections, where it
remained until sold in 1867 to Mr. John Bigelow, United States
Minister to France. By him it was later sold to Mr. E. Dwight Church
of New York, and passed with the rest of Mr. Church's library into the
possession of Mr. Henry E. Huntington. The original manuscript of
Franklin's _Autobiography_ now rests in the vault in Mr. Huntington's
residence at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, New York City.
When Mr. Bigelow came to examine his purchase, he was astonished to
find that what people had been reading for years as the authentic
_Life of Benjamin Franklin by Himself_, was only a garbled and
incomplete version of the real _Autobiography_. Temple Franklin had
taken unwarranted liberties with the original. Mr. Bigelow says he
found more than twelve hundred changes in the text. In 1868,
therefore, Mr. Bigelow published the standard edition of Franklin's
_Autobiography_. It corrected errors in the previous editions and was
the first English edition to contain the short fourth part,
comprising the last few pages of the manuscript, written during the
last year of Franklin's life. Mr. Bigelow republished the
_Autobiography_, with additional interesting matter, in three volumes
in 1875, in 1905, and in 1910. The text in this volume is that of Mr.
Bigelow's editions.[2]
[2] For the division into chapters and the chapter
titles, however, the present editor is responsible.
The _Autobiography_ has been reprinted in the United States many
scores of times and translated into all the languages of Europe. It
has never lost its popularity and is still in constant demand at
circulating libraries. The reason for this popularity is not far to
seek. For in this work Franklin told in a remarkable manner the story
of a remarkable life. He displayed hard common sense and a practical
knowledge of the art of living. He selected and arranged his material,
perhaps unconsciously, with the unerring instinct of the journalist
for the best effects. His success is not a little due to his plain,
clear, vigorous English. He used short sentences and words, homely
expressions, apt illustrations, and pointed allusions. Franklin had a
most interesting, varied, and unusual life. He was one of the greatest
conversationalists of his time.
His book is the record of that unusual life told in Franklin's own
unexcelled conversational style. It is said that the best parts of
Boswell's famous biography of Samuel Johnson are those parts where
Boswell permits Johnson to tell his own story. In the _Autobiography_
a no less remarkable man and talker than Samuel Johnson is telling his
own story throughout.
F. W. P.
The Gilman Country School,
Baltimore, September, 1916.
[Transcriber's note: Transcription of these pages are given at the end
of the text.]
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
I
ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH IN
BOSTON
Twyford,[3] _at the Bishop of St. Asaph's_, 1771.
Dear son: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes
of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among the
remains of my relations when you were with me in England, and the
journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be equally
agreeable to you to know the circumstances of my life, many of which
you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week's
uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to
write them for you. To which I have besides some other inducements.