Resumen
Resumen de Autobiografía de Benjamin Franklin
Para quién es
For readers who love practical wisdom, early American history, and a wry self-portrait told in plain words, and anyone who enjoys exploring habits for a useful life.
De qué trata este libro
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the unfinished life story of an American printer, writer, scientist and statesman. Franklin began it in 1771, while staying in the English countryside, and wrote it as a letter to his son William. He added to it in later years, in France and then back in Philadelphia, and he was still working on it near the end of his life. He died in 1790, and the book was first published after his death.
Why did he write it? He says he wanted to tell his family how a poor boy from Boston came to live a prosperous and useful life. But the book soon grows past a family letter. It becomes a guide to the habits that Franklin believed had made his way possible: hard work, frugality, plain honesty, steady reading and a talent for making friends.
You get a lively and often funny voice, full of small scenes. A runaway apprentice walks the streets of Philadelphia with bread under his arms. A young man tries to become perfect by practising one virtue each week. A civic organizer starts a library, a fire company and a hospital. Let us begin where Franklin begins, with his family and his boyhood in Boston.
En este resumen
- 1A candle maker's youngest son in BostonFree
- 2Learn to write, then leave your master
- 3Arrival in Philadelphia with three rolls
- 4Building a business and a circle of friends
- 5The plan to become morally perfect
- 6Doing good for the town, one project at a time
- 7Electricity, the stove and a surprising duty
- 8What Franklin really believes about success
- 9How the book was made and how it has lasted
Idea clave 1 de 9
A candle maker's youngest son in Boston
The book opens as a letter. Franklin writes to his son William and says he has always enjoyed collecting small stories about his ancestors. He then sets down what he knows of his own family, who were farmers and blacksmiths in the village of Ecton in Northamptonshire. They kept the same trade and the same land for many generations, and Franklin treats this with affection and humor.
His father, Josiah, crossed the Atlantic to Boston in search of the freedom to worship as he chose. There he made soap and candles, a trade he had not been raised to. Benjamin was born in Boston in 1706 and was the youngest son in a very large family. His parents first meant him for the church, and they sent him to a grammar school. But the cost of a long education was too high, and after about a year he left.
At ten years old he was put to work in his father's shop. He cut wicks, filled the candle molds, ran errands and tended the shop. He disliked the work and began to talk about going to sea, which frightened his father. To keep him on land, Josiah walked him around Boston to watch joiners, bricklayers, turners and braziers at work. Franklin says he took pleasure in seeing how things were made, and that the habit stayed with him all his life.
Books were his great pleasure. He spent every penny he had on small volumes, and he read the works of John Bunyan, Plutarch's Lives and Daniel Defoe's Essay on Projects. He also read Cotton Mather's Essays to Do Good, and he says the last book shaped his thinking about public usefulness. These authors gave him a model of the kind of person he might become. He often sold a book once he had read it in order to buy another.
One boyhood story shows his character. He and his friends take stones meant for building a house near the marsh, to make a little wharf for fishing, and the owners of the stones are angry. His father made him see that nothing can be useful which is not honest. Franklin remembers the lesson with more clarity than many later ones. It is the first sign of the link between honesty and usefulness that runs through the whole book.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Who’s who
- Benjamin Franklin
- Franklin is the printer and writer recounting his family, apprenticeship, friendships, and efforts to cultivate useful habits.
- William
- William is Franklin's son, whom he addresses while explaining his ancestry and the course of his early life.
- James
- James is Franklin's older brother, a printer who becomes his master during his apprenticeship in Boston.
- Deborah Read
- Deborah Read is the young Philadelphia woman who sees Franklin passing her house during his awkward arrival.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 74,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 4 h 55 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Autobiografía de Benjamin Franklin
What is the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin about?
It tells of Franklin's early life, from his Boston childhood and printing apprenticeship to his rise in Philadelphia as a printer, civic organizer and scientist. It is also a guide to the habits he thought led to a useful life.
Why did Benjamin Franklin write his autobiography?
He began it as a letter to his son William, wanting to record his family history and the way he rose from humble beginnings. Later he saw that his story could also teach others practical habits.
What are Franklin's thirteen virtues?
They are temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility. He practised one each week and tracked his faults in a small book, hoping to build lasting good habits.
Is the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin a complete life story?
No. Franklin wrote it in several parts between 1771 and near the end of his life, and it stops in the late 1750s. It does not cover his later role in the Revolution and the new nation.
Is Franklin's Autobiography hard to read?
No. The language is plain, the chapters are short, and the tone is humorous and direct. Most readers follow it easily.