Автобіографія Бенджаміна Франкліна

Benjamin Franklin’s memoir of his life, from his Boston boyhood and apprenticeship as a printer through his rise as a leading citizen of Philadelphia, his self-improvement projects, scientific experiments, and public service.

Begun in 1771 as a letter to his son, it is the most widely read of American memoirs — plain, practical, and quietly funny.

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was a printer before he was anything else — and he was nearly everything else besides: writer, scientist, inventor, diplomat, and a founder of the American republic. He began this account of his life in 1771 as a letter to his son and worked at it, between revolutions, for the rest of his days. He never finished it; it became the most widely read memoir in American letters anyway.

The Autobiography is where the self-improvement book begins — the thirteen virtues, the daily schedule, the famous arrival in Philadelphia with three puffy rolls. Franklin’s plain, good-humoured prose has stood as a model of clear English for two and a half centuries, which is precisely what makes it a fine book to learn the language by.