This Bantam Classic edition presents us with a new,wide-ranging selection of Benjamin Franklin's writings that illuminates the complex and appealing character of that quintessential American. who rose to fame as a publisher, inventor, educator, bon vivant.and statesman Here are selections from Franklin's newspaper articles,from the sage wisdom of POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC, from his entertaining letters, from his scientific essays, from his political and revolutionary writings, plus a generous sampling of his famous aphorisms, poems, and humor. And, most important,here is a newly edited text of one of the most vital and important works of American literature.the AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

No autobiography was ever more eagerly awaited than Benjamin Franklin"s. Contrary to all expectations, the vast, seemingly primitive, continent of North America had produced in him a genius whose accomplishments rivaled any in western history.Without formal training of any kind, this Philadelphia printer and businessman had one day turned his attention to the most recondite scientific puzzle of his age--the nature of electricity. After attending a demonstration of this new "fluid" by an Englishman traveling through Philadelphia, Franklin sent to London for some equipment and began trying to repeat the experiments.

In the next few years he revolutionized the new science,discovering positive and negative electricity and the identity of fightning and electricity. When he devised the lightning rod, he at once put the entire civilized world in his debt. A former newspaperman, Franklin was widely celebrated by the press, the eighteenth century"s great, democratizing contribution to history.As a result his name was made known to more contemporaries than had probably been aware of the existence of Alexander the Great, Jesus Christ, or Charlemagne in their own times.

No wonder, then, that impatient readers eagerly bought a pirated French translation of the Autobiography when it appeared after Franklin"s death, and that an English version based on the French also sold well. When, more than twenty-five years later,his grandson finally published a more genuine version, there proved to be no falling off of public interest. Since then the book has grown steadily in popularity and influence.

Introduction by Peter Shaw

A Note on the Text

The Autobiography

Franklin"s Outlines for the Autobiography

Selected Writings

  Newspaper Writing (1722-1734)

 Silence Dogood #7, New England Courant;

 Preface to the Pennsylvania Gazette; A

 Witch Trial at Mount Holly

  Poor Richard"s Almanac (1733-1758)

 Prefaces to Almanacs for 1733 and 1739;

 The Way to Wealth

  Projects (1728-1749)

 Rules for a Club Established for Mutual

 Improvement; A Proposal for Promoting

 Useful Knowledge among the British

 Plantations in America

  Observations and Experiments (1744-1785)

 The Pennsylvania Fireplace (the Franklin

 Stove); To Peter Collinson, the Kite

 Experiment; To Peter Collinson, Description

 of a Whirlwind; Of Lightning (The

 Lightning Rod)

  Essays (1747-1768)

 The Speech of Polly Baker; Exporting of

 Felons to the Colonies; Observations

 Concerning the Increase of Mankind and

 the Peopling of Countries; On the Price

 of Corn, and Management of the-Poor

 Letters (1747-1768)

To Mrs. Jonathan Shipley; To Jonathan

Shipley

 Revolutionary Writings (1766-1787)

Rules by which a Great Empire May be

Reduced to a Small One; The Sale of the

Hessians; To the Count de Vergennes, a

Diplomatic Apology; Speech in the

Constitutional Convention

 Wise, Practical, and Humorous Writings of the

 Aged Sage (1772-1790)

To Joseph Priestley, on Moral Algebra, or

Decision-making; Three Bagatelles and a

Letter: The Ephemera, The Whistle, The

Elysian Fields, To Madame Brillon, a Treaty;

To Samuel Mather, on Cotton Mather; To Ezra

Stiles, a Religious Credo

 Poems and Epitaph

My Plain Country Joan; Drinking Song;

Franklin"s Epitaph

Bibliography

Index