The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his Memoirs. Although it had a tortuous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written. Franklin's account of his life is divided into four parts, reflecting the different periods at which he wrote them. There are actual breaks in the narrative between the first three parts, but Part Three's narrative continues into Part Four without an authorial break (only an editorial one). In the "Introduction" of the 1916 publication of the Autobiography, editor F. W. Pine wrote that Franklin's biography provided the "most remarkable of all the remarkable histories of our self-made men" with Franklin as the greatest exemplar. The most famous writings of Benjamin Franklin include: Silence Dogood letters, A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain, The Busy-Body letters, Poor Richard's Almanack, The Drinker's Dictionary, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc., The Way to Wealth, Pennsylvania Chronicle, Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One, Proposed alliance with the Iroquois, A Letter To A Royal Academy, Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America, The Morals of Chess, An Address to the Public, A Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Bagatelles and Satires, Franklin as a journalist and many more.