Franklin on Franklin - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813122015 ISBN 13: 9780813122014

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky, 2005

Synopsis

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ends in 1758, some thirty years before he died, yet those three decades included some of the statesman's greatest triumphs. Paul Zall has created a new autobiographical account of Franklin's entire life. By returning to a newly recovered early draft of the Autobiography, he strips away later layers of moralizing to reveal the story as Franklin first wrote it: how a poor boy from Boston used words and hard work to become America's first world-class citizen. To cover Franklin's career as a diplomat and as the only signatory of all three key documents of the American Revolution, Zall interweaves autobiographical comments from Franklin's personal letters and private journals. Franklin emerges as different from the common perception. His raw words reveal the bitter infighting among both British and American politicians and his personal struggle with his son's choice of the opposite side in the fight for the future of two countries. Without the veneer of second thoughts, his lifelong struggle to control his temper carries greater poignancy, as do his later years spent nursing his wounded pride. Susceptible to both fallibility and frustration, the honest Franklin depicted in his own words nevertheless remains an uncommon common man, perhaps even more so than previously thought.

About this title

About the Author

Paul M. Zall (1922-2010), Emeritus Professor of English at California State University at Los Angeles, was a research scholar at the Huntington Library. He is the author of many books including Lincoln on Lincoln, Jefferson on Jefferson, and Franklin on Franklin.

Reviews

The effort of historians to assess Benjamin Franklin's life from youth to middle age has always been a difficult task. Most of the information for that period comes from Franklin's autobiography, and he was a notorious self-promoter. However, Zall, a research scholar at the Huntington Library, has utilized a newly recovered early draft of Franklin's autobiography. The result is a strikingly revealing, unvarnished portrait of one of our most beloved and seemingly benign Founding Fathers. Here we see Franklin as a man of driving ambition who is capable of great warmth, generosity, and insight. Yet, he could be amazingly petty, hypersensitive to perceived slights, and capable of nursing a grudge until it festered. Franklin's account ended in 1758; Zall rounds out the final three decades of Franklin's life with excerpts from his correspondence and diaries. As always, Franklin is a fascinating subject, and this work will be a valuable addition to our store of knowledge about him. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Like the author's previous book, Lincoln on Lincoln (Univ. Pr. of Kentucky, 2001), this recent volume contains various writings that delineate the former president's life and ideas. The first 23 chapters comprise the first draft of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, which he revised over an 18-year period, but here Zall (research scholar, Huntington Library) strips away Franklin's later misgivings, cautious revisions, and other changes to reveal the document as it was originally composed. Zall covers the remaining 43 years of his subject's life in the last six chapters by reprinting letters and other documents. The many contradictions of Franklin's character are on prominent display throughout the volume. All the materials contained here are already available in heavily annotated scholarly editions, including some by Zall himself (e.g., Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography: Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Criticism, 1986, coedited with J.A. Leo Lemay). The present volume is aimed at general readers and does an excellent job of allowing Franklin's own words to reveal the major events and emotions in his life. Recommended for public libraries. T.J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ., NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813122015
• ISBN 13: 9780813122014
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328
• Editor: Zall Paul M.