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Title: Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings by Benjamin Franklin ISBN: 0-451-52810-7 Publisher: Signet Book Pub. Date: 05 September, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (40 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Franklin's informal account of his remarkable life
Comment: In many ways, this is, to someone coming to it for the first time, a very surprising book. For one thing, it is amazingly incomplete. Franklin is, of course, one of the most famous Americans who ever lived, and his accomplishments in a wide array of endeavors are a part of American lore and popular history. A great deal of this lore and many of his accomplishments are missing from this account of his life. He never finished the autobiography, earlier in his life because he was too busy with what he terms public "employments," and later in life because the opium he was taking for kidney stones left him unable to concentrate sufficiently. Had Franklin been able to write about every period of his life and all of his achievements, his AUTOBIOGRAPHY would have been one of the most remarkable documents every produced. It is amazingly compelling in its incomplete state.
As a serious reader, I was delighted in the way that Franklin is obsessed with the reading habits of other people. Over and over in the course of his memoir, he remarks that such and such a person was fond of reading, or owned a large number of books, or was a poet or author. Clearly, it is one of the qualities he most admires in others, and one of the qualities in a person that makes him want to know a person. He finds other readers to be kindred souls.
If one is familiar with the Pragmatists, one finds many pragmatist tendencies in Franklin's thought. He is concerned less with ideals than with ideas that work and are functional. For instance, at one point he implies that while his own beliefs lean more towards the deistical, he sees formal religion as playing an important role in life and society, and he goes out of his way to never criticize the faith of another person. His pragmatism comes out also in list of the virtues, which is one of the more famous and striking parts of his book. As is well known, he compiled a list of 13 virtues, which he felt summed up all the virtues taught by all philosophers and religions. But they are practical, not abstract virtues. He states that he wanted to articulate virtues that possessed simple and not complex ideas. Why? The simpler the idea, the easier to apply. And in formulating his list of virtues, he is more concerned with the manner in which these virtues can be actualized in one's life. Franklin has utterly no interest in abstract morality.
One of Franklin's virtues is humility, and his humility comes out in the form of his book. His narrative is exceedingly informal, not merely in the first part, which was ostensibly addressed to his son, but in the later sections (the autobiography was composed upon four separate occasions). The informal nature of the book displays Franklin's intended humility, and for Franklin, seeming to be so is nearly as important as actually being so. For part of the function of the virtues in an individual is not merely to make that particular person virtuous, but to function as an example to others. This notion of his being an example to other people is one of the major themes in his book. His life, he believes, is an exemplary one. And he believes that by sharing the details of his own life, he can serves as a template for other lives.
One striking aspect of his book is what one could almost call Secular Puritanism. Although Franklin was hardly a prude, he was nonetheless very much a child of the Puritans. This is not displayed merely in his promotion of the virtues, but in his abstaining from excessiveness in eating, drinking, conversation, or whatever. Franklin is intensely concerned with self-governance.
I think anyone not having read this before will be surprised at how readable and enjoyable this is. I think also one can only regret that Franklin was not able to write about the entirety of his life. He was a remarkable man with a remarkable story to tell.
Rating: 5
Summary: Franklin's life as the prototype of the American character
Comment: The prevailing conception of the American character found its apotheosis in the persona of Benjamin Franklin. In early American culture Franklin was considered the typical American whose life philosophy exemplified American attitudes towards life, wealth, and happiness. The proof of this philosophy was found in Franklin's life and both are interwoven in his autobiography.
Certainly Franklin became omnipresent in American history (the greatest president who was never president, as I recall) partly because of his own efforts at self-promotion, of which "The Autobiography" is a prime example along with the constant reprinting of "Poor Richard's Almanac" (see the preface to the last edition in 1758 entitled "The Way to Wealth," which presages the autobiography). Franklin was first and foremost a moralist concerned with the personal, social, and civic improvement of his fellow citizens. The book opens with a letter, written to his son William in 1771. Of course, William, the Royal Governor of New Jersey, is forty years old, so the advice being offered is not to his literal (illegitimate) son but rather to any and all "youth." The book is intended as an exemplar for moral action and virtues.
Part I has Franklin describing his ancestry and lineage, covering his precocious childhood where he learned the virtues and morals that would serve him in good stead as an adult. Indeed, the story of Franklin becoming a successful businessman and important citizen in Philadelphia is a series of anecdotes in which he uses his intelligence and wit to solve any and all challenges. As autobiography we know this account to be flawed, for Franklin recreates his life to suit his purpose, but as rhetorical exemplar it is impressive. Part II reinforces this point by beginning with a pair of letters from Abel James and Benjamin Vaughn, who praise Part I for having celebrated the frugality, industry, and temperance necessary for a man's character to develop as a prelude to success. This section was written ten years after the first, when Franklin was in France. Here Franklin discusses moral perfection and the importance of industry and frugality in achieving success. Part III was written when Franklin returns home to Philadelphia in August of 1788, and continues the detailing his long career of public service, from publisher "Poor Richard's Almanac" to becoming Postmaster of the United States. Part IV is something of a fragment devoted to an episode in London in 1747 when Franklin became an early proponent of American rights. Ironically, this section, which would have contained the autobiographical information we would most want to hear with regards to the fight for Independence, is the briefest.
Ultimately, what becomes most important about "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" is that it serves as the genesis of the aristocracy of merit in the United States. Franklin's life is the model for the stories of Horatio Alger a century later and instantiates the idea that America is the land of opportunity where it is by merit that we can earn success. That idea has been expressed in countless ways since this book was first published in all its myriad forms, but the life of Franklin is the font from which it all springs.
Rating: 3
Summary: A Book Of Firsts
Comment: Said to be the first work of American literature, by America's first citizen: Ben Franklin's autobiography has certainly drawn a lot of praise.
Written in several pieces, it takes his life just past his electrical experiments, ending with his ambassadorial trip to London in 1757 on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to argue that the Proprietors (the descendants of William Penn) should accept a tax to fund the raising of a militia.
Ben's early life story is familiar to all, coming penniless from Boston to Philadelphia, etc. particularly these days when new Franklin biographies seem to appear almost monthly. It is an interesting book, particularly because it was written by Franklin himself. But the breathless praise that is everywhere showered upon it seems a bit over done. First of all, it's incomplete, and secondly, it's not nearly as witty as Poor Richard.
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Title: The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin ISBN: 0918222885 Publisher: Applewood Books Pub. Date: November, 1986 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Poor Richards Almanack by Benjamin Franklin ISBN: 0880889187 Publisher: Peter Pauper Press Pub. Date: November, 1983 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Benjamin Franklin Wit and Wisdom by Benjamin Franklin, Corbis-Bettmann ISBN: 0880880813 Publisher: Peter Pauper Press Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Common Sense by Thomas Paine ISBN: 0486296024 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 22 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
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Title: Benjamin Franklin's the Art of Virtue: His Formula for Successful Living by Benjamin Franklin, George L. Rogers, John Hamer ISBN: 0938399101 Publisher: Acorn Publishing Pub. Date: 01 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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