Written between 1717 and 1790, and originally referred to by its author as simply Memoirs, Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography is considered the pioneering example of the genre. In this influential account of the American Dream in action, Franklin recounts his early life, his inventions, his quest for virtue and self-improvement, and his political achievements. The unfinished work is a vivid … depiction of life in early America, as well as a relatable and inspiring portrait of one of its revolutionary thinkers.
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Revised edition: Previously published as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, this edition of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.
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This offered interesting insight into Franklin’s early life. Sadly, it ended before the American Revolution, but it did give me a better understanding of some of the abuses that the American colonies were enduring from both soldiers and the elite, who thought that the commoners should finance their wars and protection of their land as well as the rest of the colonies with taxes that they were exempt from. I didn’t realize just how involved in the political scene Franklin was until listening to his autobiography. He was often asked by members of the colony’s governing assembly to help write legislation, correspond with the governor and those pushing legislation under him, lobby on their behalf, and help start various initiatives. By the time the Revolutionary War came around, he was the man everyone in Philadelphia wanted to have on board with their resolution because without his name to it, funding for projects was often impossible to secure since everyone wanted to know if Franklin was on board with it.
Despite the prestige, he was a man of no fuss and no nonsense, disliking pomp and ceremony greatly. He tried his best to live in a manner that was unassuming and to live virtuously throughout his life. He became a Deist later on in life, partially owing it seems to the lack of appeal to the mind that most of the Christian sects made. I can well understand how he felt regarding this as I myself have experienced a sense of detachment, loathing, and disgust for services in which it is purely emotionalism or purely legalistic without an appeal to my reason or my mind. In that regard, I found I very closely related to Franklin. I am not, by any means, a Deist, but I can see how–in his time–he went that direction as a result of what the churches had to offer. Nevertheless, he found great value in Christian principles of virtue and many times his disdain toward sermons was owing to their not focusing on the many virtues and principles that the Scriptures extoled. Despite choosing not to attend services on Sundays in most cases, Franklin did choose voluntarily to pay tithes to the church of his choosing. This wasn’t something that was particularly pressed, from what he says in his autobiography, in Pennsylvania where it was mostly Quakers and no obligation to pay another church would have been expected anyway. Nevertheless, Franklin chose to support the cause anyway, though he doesn’t go into much detail in his autobiography as to why, which does make me curious as to his choice to do so and the reasoning for it.
I found it interesting to read about Benjamin Franklin from his own words. I liked learning more about his motivations and thoughts behind his actions, but he wrote in one long, continuing summary. I suppose that makes sense for his time and purpose (he was writing to his son, after all), however, it was a bit laborious to read. Additionally, I’m not sure if the formatting was true to the original manuscript or was simply not done well for the edition I own, but footnotes added directly under the appropriate paragraph in the middle of the narrative added a challenge to reading. Overall, it’s worth the time if you are interested at all in the man or his period of history, but it’s not riveting.