The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the unfinished record of Benjamin Franklin’s own life that he worked on between 1771 and 1790. Franklin appears to have called the work his Memoirs, and the narrative reflects the periods during which he wrote. Franklin divided his account into four parts, with actual breaks between the first three parts and Part Three continuing into Part Four without an authorial break. The manuscript experienced a tortuous publication history after Franklin’s death and has become a widely cited example of an autobiography in American letters, as noted by editor F. W. Pine in 1916.