Description

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Benjamin Franklin's writings represent a long career of literary, scientific and political efforts over a lifetime which extended nearly the entire eighteenth century. This volume includes Franklin's reflections on such diverse questions as philosophy and religion, social status, electricity, American national characteristics, war, and the status of women. Nearly sixty years separate the earliest writings from the latest, an interval during which Franklin was continually balancing between the puritan values of his upbringing and the modern American world to which his career served as prologue.

This edition provides a new text of the Autobiography, established with close reference to Franklin's original manuscript. It also includes a new transcription of the 1726 journal and several pieces which have recently been identified as Franklin's own work.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

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Benjamin Franklin's writings represent a long career of literary, scientific and political efforts over a lifetime which extended nearly the entire eighteenth century. Franklin's achivements range from inventing the lightning rod to publishing Poor Richard's Almanack to signing the Declaration of Independence. In his own lifetime he knew prominence not only in America but in Britain and France as well.