Considered to be one of the best autobiographies written in colonial America, Franklin portrays a fascinating picture of life in pre-revolutionary Philadelphia. In his own words he describes his life as a printer, inventor, scientist, and politician.
Readers and historians have long lamented that Franklin failed to complete his Autobiography. While a classic in literature and among the most widely read autobiographies in the world, he stopped writing it in 1757-years before the most exciting events of his life. Now, in honor of the 300th anniversary of Franklin's birth, Skousen has finished the autobiography completely in Franklin's own words.
Note: When first issued, the Library of America edition of Franklin's Writings was collected in one large volume; later, it was published as two separate volumes.
This Library of America collection of Franklin's works begins with letters sent from London (1757–1775) describing the events and diplomacy preceding the Revolutionary War. The volume also contains political satires, bagatelles, pamphlets, and letters written in Paris (1776–1785), where he represented the revolutionary United States at the court of Louis XVI, as well as his speeches given in the Constitutional Convention and other works written in Philadelphia (1785–1790), including his last published article, a searing satire against slavery.
Also included are the delightfully shrewd prefaces to Poor Richard's Almanack (1733–1758) and their worldly, pungent maxims that have entered our American culture. Finally, the classic Autobiography, Franklin's last word on his greatest literary creation—his own invented personality—is presented here in a new edition, completely faithful to Franklin's manuscript.
A companion volume includes the complete "Silence Dogood" series, "Busy-Body" essays, and a generous selection of his early writings, including letters to the press, satires, and pamphlets.
J. A. Leo Lemay, editor of this volume, is professor of colonial literature at the University of Delaware. The author of numerous works on Franklin, including The Canon of Benjamin Franklin 1722–1776: New Attributions and Reconsiderations, he has edited The Oldest Revolutionary and (with P. M. Zall) The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: A Genetic Text.
DEADWOOD, DAKOTA TERRITORIES, 1876: Legendary gunman Wild Bill Hickcock and his friend Charlie Utter have come to the Black Hills town of Deadwood fresh from Cheyenne, fleeing an ungrateful populace. Bill, aging and sick but still able to best any man in a fair gunfight, just wants to be left alone to drink and play cards. But in this town of played-out miners, bounty hunters, upstairs girls, Chinese immigrants, and various other entrepeneurs and miscreants, he finds himself pursued by a vicious sheriff, a perverse whore man bent on revenge, and a besotted Calamity Jane. Fueled by liquor, sex, and violence, this is the real wild west, unlike anything portrayed in the dime novels that first told its story.
In 1771, at the age of 65, Benjamin Franklin sat down to write his autobiography, "having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity." The result is a classic of American literature. On the eve of the tercentenary of Franklin's birth, the university he founded has selected the "Autobiography" for the Penn Reading Project. Each year, for the past fifteen years, the University of Pennsylvania has chosen a single work that the entire incoming class, and a large segment of the faculty and staff, read and discuss together. For this occasion the University of Pennsylvania Press has published a special edition of Franklin's "Autobiography," including a new preface by University president Amy Gutmann and an introduction by distinguished scholar Peter Conn. The volume also includes four short essays by noted Penn professors as well as a chronology of Franklin's life and the text of Franklin's "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania," a document resulting in the establishment of an institution of higher education that ultimately became the University of Pennsylvania.
FEMME FATALES
OBSESSIVE LOVE
DOUBLE CROSSES
How does a respectable young woman fall into Los Angeles' hard-boiled underworld?
Shadow-dodging through the glamorous world of 1950s Hollywood and its seedy flip side, Megan Abbott's debut, Die a Little, is a gem of the darkest hue. This ingenious twist on a classic noir tale tells the story of Lora King, a schoolteacher, and her brother Bill, a junior investigator with the district attorney's office. Lora's comfortable, suburban life is jarringly disrupted when Bill falls in love with a mysterious young woman named Alice Steele, a Hollywood wardrobe assistant with a murky past.
Made sisters by marriage but not by choice, the bond between Lora and Alice is marred by envy and mistrust. Spurred on by inconsistencies in Alice's personal history and possibly jealous of Alice's hold on her brother, Lora finds herself lured into the dark alleys and mean streets of seamy Los Angeles. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she uncovers a shadowy world of drugs, prostitution, and ultimately, murder.
Lora's fascination with Alice's "sins" increases in direct proportion to the escalation of her own relationship with Mike Standish, a charmingly amoral press agent who appears to know more about his old friend Alice than he reveals. The deeper Lora digs to uncover Alice's secrets, the more her own life begins to resemble Alice's sinister past -- and present.
Steeped in atmospheric suspense and voyeuristic appeal, Die a Little shines as a dark star among Hollywood lights.
In, "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," the life story of one of the most important figures in American history is recounted. The book tells the story of Franklin's early days as a printer, publisher and inventor through to the year 1757 where the Autobiography ends uncompleted. Franklin wrote this autobiography during three different periods in his life and it is supposed that it is left unfinished due to his dying before its completion. There may be no greater figure in American history than Benjamin Franklin and here the reader will delight in an intimate portrait of the man.
