BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

I was not only one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. I was a leading writer, publisher, inventor, diplomat, scientist, and philosopher. I am well-known for my experiments with electricity and lightning, and for publishing "Poor Richard's Almanac" and the Pennsylvania Gazette. I served as Postmaster General under the Continental Congress, and later became a prominent abolitionist. I am credited with inventing the lightning rod, the Franklin Stove, and bifocals.
A year after my death, my autobiography, entitled "Memoires De La Vie Privee," was published in Paris in March of 1791. The first English translation, "The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. Originally Written By Himself, And Now Translated From The French," was published in London in 1793.

Known today as "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," this classic piece of Americana was originally written for my son William, then the Governor of New Jersey.
The work portrays a fascinating picture of life in Philadelphia, as well as my shrewd observations on the literature, philosophy and religion of America's Colonial and Revolutionary periods. I wrote the first five chapters of my autobiography in England in 1771, resumed again thirteen years later (1784-85) in Paris and later in 1788 when I returned to the United States. I ends the account of my life in 1757 when I was 51 years old.
Considered to be the greatest autobiography produced in Colonial America, Franklin's Autobiography is published here in 14 chapters.