This Bantam Classic edition presents us with a new,wide-ranging selection of Benjamin Franklin's writings that illuminates the complex and appealing character of that quintessential American. who rose to fame as a publisher, inventor, educator, bon vivant.and statesman Here are selections from Franklin's newspaper articles,from the sage wisdom of POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC, from his entertaining letters, from his scientific essays, from his political and revolutionary writings, plus a generous sampling of his famous aphorisms, poems, and humor. And, most important,here is a newly edited text of one of the most vital and important works of American literature.the AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

No autobiography was ever more eagerly awaited than Benjamin Franklin"s. Contrary to all expectations, the vast, seemingly primitive, continent of North America had produced in him a genius whose accomplishments rivaled any in western history.Without formal training of any kind, this Philadelphia printer and businessman had one day turned his attention to the most recondite scientific puzzle of his age--the nature of electricity. After attending a demonstration of this new "fluid" by an Englishman traveling through Philadelphia, Franklin sent to London for some equipment and began trying to repeat the experiments. In the next few years he revolutionized the new science,discovering positive and negative electricity and the identity of fightning and electricity. When he devised the lightning rod, he at once put the entire civilized world in his debt. A former newspaperman, Franklin was widely celebrated by the press, the eighteenth century"s great, democratizing contribution to history.As a result his name was made known to more contemporaries than had probably been aware of the existence of Alexander the Great, Jesus Christ, or Charlemagne in their own times. No wonder, then, that impatient readers eagerly bought a pirated French translation of the Autobiography when it appeared after Franklin"s death, and that an English version based on the French also sold well. When, more than twenty-five years later,his grandson finally published a more genuine version, there proved to be no falling off of public interest. Since then the book has grown steadily in popularity and influence.

Introduction by Peter Shaw
A Note on the Text
The Autobiography
Franklin"s Outlines for the Autobiography
Selected Writings
Newspaper Writing (1722-1734)
Silence Dogood #7, New England Courant;
Preface to the Pennsylvania Gazette; A
Witch Trial at Mount Holly
Poor Richard"s Almanac (1733-1758)
Prefaces to Almanacs for 1733 and 1739;
The Way to Wealth
Projects (1728-1749)
Rules for a Club Established for Mutual
Improvement; A Proposal for Promoting
Useful Knowledge among the British
Plantations in America
Observations and Experiments (1744-1785)
The Pennsylvania Fireplace (the Franklin
Stove); To Peter Collinson, the Kite
Experiment; To Peter Collinson, Description
of a Whirlwind; Of Lightning (The
Lightning Rod)
Essays (1747-1768)
The Speech of Polly Baker; Exporting of
Felons to the Colonies; Observations
Concerning the Increase of Mankind and
the Peopling of Countries; On the Price
of Corn, and Management of the-Poor
Letters (1747-1768)
To Mrs. Jonathan Shipley; To Jonathan
Shipley
Revolutionary Writings (1766-1787)
Rules by which a Great Empire May be
Reduced to a Small One; The Sale of the
Hessians; To the Count de Vergennes, a
Diplomatic Apology; Speech in the
Constitutional Convention
Wise, Practical, and Humorous Writings of the
Aged Sage (1772-1790)
To Joseph Priestley, on Moral Algebra, or
Decision-making; Three Bagatelles and a
Letter: The Ephemera, The Whistle, The
Elysian Fields, To Madame Brillon, a Treaty;
To Samuel Mather, on Cotton Mather; To Ezra
Stiles, a Religious Credo
Poems and Epitaph
My Plain Country Joan; Drinking Song;
Franklin"s Epitaph
Bibliography
Index