Franklin's Autobiography is the only enduring best-seller written in America before the nineteenth century as well as the most popular autobiography ever written. As such it deserves to be offered to twenty-first-century readers in the mostaccurate form possible. And so it is, in this Norton Critical Edition, thefirst text to be edited direct]y from the manuscripts, rather than perpet-uating the errors of previous editions. The text is fully annotated, and thereading is assisted by helpful footnotes, biographical sketches, and twomaps.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Note on the Text

  Map: Franklin Enters Philadelphia, Sunday,October 6, 1723

The Text of the Autobiography

  The Autobiography

  Textual Notes

  Franklin's Journey from Boston to Philadelphia, 1723

  The Outline of the Autobiography

  Biographical Notes

Backgrounds

Excerpts from Franklin's Letters Mentioning the

Autobiography

  To Mathew Carey, August 10, 1786

  To the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, October 22, 1788

  To Benjamin Vaughan, October 24, 1788

  To William Vaughan, December 9, 1788

  To Benjamin Vaughan, June 3, 1789

  To Benjamin Vaughan, November 2, 1789

  To M. Le Veillard, November !3, 1789

"Authentic Memoir of Dr. Franklin"

Anecdotes Recorded by John Jay

  [Robert Hunter Morris]

  [Andrew Hamilton]

  [Writing for the New Jersey Assembly]

  [Quaker Attitude toward Warfare]

  EXCERPTS FROM FRANKLIN'S WRITINGS ON WEALTH, THE ART OF VIRTUE, AND PERFECTION

Wealth

 From Poor Richard, March, 1736

 To Cadwallader Colden, Philadelphia, September 29,1748

 To Abiah Franklin, Philadelphia, April, 12, 1750

 To William Strahan, Philadelphia, June 2, 1750

 To Peter Collinson, Philadelphia, November 5, 1756

 [Benjamin Rush on Franklin]

 To Jane Mecom, London, December 30, 1770

 To Thomas Cushing, London, June 10, 1771

 To David Harfley, Passy, France, February 2, 1780

 Benjamin Vaughan to Lord Shelburne, Dover, November24, 1782

 To Robert Morris, Passy, France, December 25, 1783

 To Benjamin Webb, Passy, France, April 22, 1784

 To Benjamin Vaughan, Passy, France, July 26, 1784

 [Private Property Is a Creature of Society, November, 1789]

The Art of Virtue

 [Poor Richard on Self-Improvement, 1749]

 To Lord Kames, May 3, 1760

 To Joseph Priestley, September 19, 1772

Perfection

  Franklin's Epitaph, 1728

  [Franklin's Junto Query on Human Perfection, 1732]

  [An Early Version of the Art of Virtue, 1758]

  [On Perfection in Human Institutions, 1770]

  [On Religious Tests for Citizenship, 1780]

Criticism

  CONTEMPORARY OPINIONS

  David Hume·David Hume to Franklin, Edinburgh, May10, 1762

  Mather Byles·Mather Byles to Franklin, Boston, late 1765

  Franklin in the Cockpit·The Pennsylvania Gazette Report, 1774·Benjamin Vaughan's Account, 1779

  House of Lords, February 1, 1775·William Pitt, Lord Chatham, vs. John Montague, Lord Sandwich, onFranklin

  Edmund Burke·Edmund Burke to Count Patrick D'Arcy,October 5, 1775

  Peter Oliver·Excerpt from Origins & Progress of the American Rebellion

  Richard Price·Richard Price to Franklin, May 1790

  Anonymous·Excerpt from The Bee, February 27, 1793

  John Adams·John Adams on Franklin, May 15, 1811

  NINETEENTH-CENTURY OPINIONS

  Joseph Dennie~ From The Port Folio, 1801

  Francis, Lord ]effrey~ From the Edinburgh Review, 1806

  Charles Brockden Brown·From Literary Magazine, 1806

  John Foster·From The Eclectic Review, 1818

  John Keats·To George and Georgiana Keats, October 14-31, 1818

  Edgar Allan Poe·The Business Man

  Leigh Hunt·From Hunt's Autobiography

  Herman Melville·From Israel Potter

  Anonymous·From The Nation, 1868

  Mark Twain·The Late Benjamin Franklin

  Frederick Jackson Turner·From The Dial, 1887

  William Dean Howells·From "Editor's Study," April, 1888

   ·From "Editor's Study," July, 1888

   ·From "Editor's Study," January, 1890

   ·From "Editor's Easy Chair," October, 1905

  TWENTIETH-CENTURY OPINIONS

  Max Weber·Excerpt from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

  D. H. Lawrence·Benjamin Franklin

  W. Somerset Maugham·[The Classic Books of America]

  Charles L. Sanford·An American Pilgrim's Progress

  Robert Freeman Sayre·The Worldly Franklin and the Provincial Critics

  Jobn William Ward·Who Was Benjamin Franklin?

  David Levin·The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: The Puritan Experimenter in Life and Art

  ]. A. Leo Lemay·Franklin's Autobiography and the American Dream

Bibliography

  Key Editions of Franklin's Autobiography

  Abbreviations and Bibliography for the Annotations and the Biographical Notes

  A Selective, Annotated Bibliography of Twentieth-Century Criticism

  Authors

Index