Franklin on FranklinPaul M. Zall University Press of Kentucky, 14.12.2021 - 328 Seiten 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. |
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... seems merely copied from other material. Parts three and four, both composed in America from August 1788 to December 1789, show different batches of ink. One batch was used to make revisions to part one, suggesting that even on his ...
... seems to be a Recollection of that Life, and to make that Recollection as durable as possible, the putting it down in Writing. Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination so natural in old Men, to be talking of themselves and their own ...
... seems inconsistent with the intention to be “entertaining, interesting, and useful,” it is consistent with that of private correspondence or journals talking about relations with the Penn family of proprietors and the British ministry ...
... seems odd for one who only a couple of years earlier had refused the public even a biographical sketch. But Jefferson, like his mentor, was another Great Communicator and would know how to publicize British villainy, for—as Franklin ...
... seem'd that I was destin'd for a Tallow Chandler; however, living near the Water, I learnt early to swim well.9 I made two oval Palettes, each about ten inches long and six broad, with Holes for the Thumbs to hold them tightly in each ...
Inhalt
Facing Uncertain Philadelphia Future 17261727 | |
Venturing into Business | |
May 1728September 1730 | |
1749 | |
17481753 | |
17431753 | |
1754 | |
1756 | |
17561757 | |
17571762 | |
17571765 | |
17291730 | |
17311732 | |
17311754 | |
17361739 | |
17391740 | |
1740s | |
17661770 | |
17701774 | |
17741775 | |
17751785 | |
Notes | |
Index | |