The Unfinished Life of Benjamin Franklin Anderson, Douglas Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Anderson, Douglas. The Unfinished Life of Benjamin Franklin. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/book.13866. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/13866 [ Access provided at 29 Sep 2021 15:56 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The Unfinished Life of Benjamin Franklin This page intentionally left blank The unfinished life of Benjamin Franklin douglas anderson The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2012 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 9876543 2 i The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Anderson, Douglas, 1950– The unfinished life of Benjamin Franklin / Douglas Anderson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13 978-1-4214-0523-0 (hdbk: acid-free paper) isbn-10 1-4214-0523-7 (hdbk: acid-free paper) isbn-13: 978-1-4214-0613-8 (electronic) isbn-10: 1-4214-0613-6 (electronic) 1. Franklin, Benjamin, 1706–1790. Autobiography. 2. Franklin, Benjamin, 1706–1790. 3. Statesmen—United States—Biography. I. Title. e302.6.f8a58 2012 973.3'092—dc23 [B] 2011040332 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected]. The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible. Contents List of Illustrations vii Preface ix A Note to the Reader xi introduction Accident and Design 1 chapter 1 Great Works and Little Anecdotes 13 chapter 2 Imposing Forms 47 chapter 3 The Scramble of Life 82 chapter 4 Litera Scripta Manet 119 chapter 5 Some Uses of Cunning 150 conclusion Segmented Serpent 182 Notes 193 Index 209 This page intentionally left blank Illustrations Frontispiece, The Pilgrim’s Progress, third edition (1679) 20 Pieter Breughel the Elder, “Big Fish Eat Little Fish” (1556) 31 Description of the rowboat incident with John Collins, Franklin’s manuscript 49 Franklin’s daily schedule, Franklin’s manuscript 69 Franklin’s letter to his son, March 22, 1775, from “On board the Pennsylvania Packet” 107 “Hints for Conversation,” insert in Franklin’s letter to his son, March 22, 1775 110 Excerpt from Franklin’s letter to his son, March 22, 1775 116 “Join, or Die,” cartoon 183 This page intentionally left blank Preface This book proposes to illuminate the legacy of Benjamin Franklin by substi- tuting his memoir for his life. The reverse is the customary scholarly practice: to sift the memoir for incidents and evidence that can illuminate our current understanding of the Atlantic world in Franklin’s lifetime. No face in American history is more famous than his. Perhaps only Washington and Lincoln are equally recognizable, and equally mythic, figures. Since the bicentennial of the American Revolution, and the tercentennial of Franklin’s birth, no other indi- vidual has prompted a similar outpouring of work by biographers, historians, political scientists, economists, and cultural critics—much of it of very high quality and eagerly consumed by a large community of readers who continue to be drawn to the story of Franklin’s interests and achievements, his strengths and weaknesses. But our collective story of Franklin’s life is not his story. To the extent that I have been able to do so, I have set the historical presence of Benjamin Frank- lin to one side in order to concentrate on reading the pages of his incomplete memoir, an immersion in words that, I hope, is as rewarding as Franklin’s own experience often proved to be, when as a sixteen-year-old apprentice he ate a simple and hurried lunch in his brother’s Boston printing house and devoted the rest of his midday break to the complex pleasures of reading. From time to time, I have called attention to Franklin’s personal or public circumstances during the course of discussing his book, but I have done so only when those circumstances seemed instrumental to understanding and enjoying Franklin’s prose. These remarks will partly explain the selective nature of the notes that follow these chapters and provide a measure of necessary background for the introduction’s opening sentence. a number of generous individuals offered their time, advice, and assist- ance as this book took final form. Olga Tsapina, Norris Foundation Curator of American Historical Manuscripts at The Huntington Library, made the process x Preface of securing illustrations from Franklin’s manuscript a pleasure. Paul Hogroian and Bonnie Coles at the Library of Congress directed me to the 1973 printed guide of the library’s Franklin holdings, much of which, including Franklin’s 1775 voyage letter, is widely available on microfilm. The Imaging Services staff of the University of Georgia Library converted selections from the film into digital files. Carla Mulford kept me engaged with Franklin’s work, despite the distractions of other writing interests, and gave a thoughtful assessment of the manuscript that prompted its complete reconsideration. Robert J. Brugger at the Johns Hopkins University Press steered the book into the hands of Matt McAdam, an exemplary blend of advocate and critic throughout the acquisitions process. Brian MacDonald was both a patient and an exacting copy editor. Juliana McCarthy and Anne Whitmore, along with the rest of the editing and production staffs at the Johns Hopkins University Press, managed my authorial anxieties with tact and intelligence, as they ushered the book into being. I continue to be grateful to the University of Georgia for its support of my writing through the resources of the Sterling-Goodman Professorship. A Note to the Reader Parenthetical citations identifying the source of Franklin’s words refer either to The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, published by the Yale University Press and abbreviated as P, followed by volume and page number, or to the Yale edition of the Autobiography (A), edited by Leonard W. Labaree, Ralph L. Ketcham, Helen C. Boatfield, and Helene H. Fineman, published originally in 1964. Wherever my discussion of the Autobiography hinges on minute particulars of phrasing or word choice, I have checked these against the Genetic Text of Franklin’s manuscript, prepared by Leo Lemay and P. M. Zall and published by the University of Tennessee Press (1981). Though the Yale edition may still retain a handful of transcription errors (“more than fifty” according to Lemay and Zall, though they do not undertake to list them), it remains an editorial monument of great importance, as well as a beautiful, compact, and readily available book. I prefer it for some of the same reasons that Franklin’s imagi- nary neighbor once decided that he liked a speckled ax best. Parenthetical ci- tations from The Pilgrim’s Progress (PP) refer to the Oxford World’s Classics paperback edition, edited by W. R. Owens. This page intentionally left blank The Unfinished Life of Benjamin Franklin This page intentionally left blank introduction Accident and Design he following pages are about a book, not a man. Its author never gave his workT a title, and though he wrote in English, part of his manuscript was first published in French translation in 1791, a year after his death. This initial ap- pearance was quickly followed by German, Swedish, and English translations of the French fragment, one of which was serialized in eight installments of The Lady’s Magazine; or Entertaining Companion of the Fair Sex in London beginning in January 1793. Twenty-five years and over one hundred English- language editions later, an 1818 version of the book based on what was thought to be a copy of the entire English original finally appeared, but even then the text was incomplete, with changes in wording that may have drawn, in part, on a transcription that has since disappeared. This irregular journey into print might well have delighted the author, editor, and publisher whose life story was in the process of making a haphazard return to its native tongue.1 Seventy-seven years after the book’s initial, fragmentary publication, an American diplomat named John Bigelow produced a version drawn directly from the complete manuscript that Benjamin Franklin had left behind at his death. Bigelow’s 1868 edition included all the major parts of the story that con- 2 The Unfinished Life of Benjamin Franklin temporary readers associate with the title that Bigelow adopted, the Autobi- ography of Benjamin Franklin, but his efforts drew criticism from subsequent editors, and though the title that he used has prevailed, his text has not. After more than a century of scholarly labor, it is still an unfinished life, with im- portant pieces lost or scattered, partly by accident and partly not, much as its author must have expected would occur, given the turbulent world from which the book emerged and where it first appeared, in a city and a language where Franklin himself was, at best, only partly at home. Mémoires de la vie privée de Benjamin Franklin, écrits par lui-même, et adressés a son fils is what the 1791 translator had called Franklin’s story, supplementing the narrative fragment with a “historical handbook” (précis historique) of Franklin’s political views, as well as several additional items relating to this “father of liberty.” Liberty had recently begun its violent reconstruction of French life as this early translation went to press.