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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... wrote it in his own words. The way he revised the manuscript over eighteen years would reveal Franklin himself in a different way, not so self-possessed and self-controlled as he would like others to believe. His was not Rousseau's ...
... wrote and convey'd in the same Way to the Press several more Papers, which were equally approv'd, and I kept my Secret till my small Fund of Sense for such Performances was pretty well exhausted, & then I discover'd it; when I began to ...
... wrote me a Letter, mentioning the Concern of my Friends in Boston at my abrupt Departure, assuring me of their Goodwill to me, and that every thing would be accommodated to my Mind if I would return, which he exhorted me to very ...
... wrote a civil Letter to Sir William thanking him for Patronage he had so kindly offered me, but declining to assist me as yet in Setting up, I being in his Opinion too young to be trusted with the Management of a Business so important ...
... wrote more than one Letter, & that was to let her know I was not likely soon to return. In fact, I was unable to pay my Passage. This was one of the great Errata of my Life, which I should wish to correct if Living a second Edition. At ...
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 | |