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
achievements 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. 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.
