Benjamin Franklin - The Complete Harvard Classics

The Harvard Classics

also known as

Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf

Compiled and Edited by

Dr. Charles W. Eliot

President, Harvard University

P F COLLIER & SON COMPANY
NEW YORK (1909)

Presented, for the first time,
complete and unabridged
in e-book format.

"The Five Foot Shelf in three-quarters of an inch."

Compiled and Edited by
Roy Pitchford

Table of Contents

• Vol. 1: FRANKLIN, WOOLMAN, PENN
  • by Benjamin Franklin
  • by John Woolman (1774 and subsequent editions)
  • by William Penn
• Vol. 2. PLATO, EPICTETUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
  • by Plato
  • by Epictetus
  • by Marcus Aurelius
• Vol. 3. BACON, MILTON'S PROSE, THOS. BROWNE
  • by Francis Bacon
  • by John Milton
  • by Sir Thomas Browne
• Vol. 4. COMPLETE POEMS IN ENGLISH, MILTON
  • by John Milton
• Vol. 5. ESSAYS AND ENGLISH TRAITS, EMERSON
  • by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Vol. 6. POEMS AND SONGS, BURNS
  • by Robert Burns
• Vol. 7. CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, IMITATIONS OF CHRIST
  • by Saint Augustine
  • by Thomas Kempis
• Vol. 8. NINE GREEK DRAMAS
  • by schylus
  • by Sophocles
  • by Euripides
  • by Aristophanes
• Vol. 9. LETTERS AND TREATISES OF CICERO AND PLINY
  • by Cicero
  • by Pliny the Younger
• Vol. 10. WEALTH OF NATIONS, ADAM SMITH
  • by Adam Smith
• Vol. 11. ORIGIN OF SPECIES, DARWIN
  • by Charles Darwin
• Vol. 12. PLUTARCH'S LIVES
  • by Plutarch
• Vol. 13. AENEID, VIRGIL
  • by Virgil
• Vol. 14. DON QUIXOTE, Part 1 only, CERVANTES
  • by Cervantes
• Vol. 15. PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, DONNE & HERBERT, BUNYAN, WALTON
  • by John Bunyan
  • by Izaak Walton
• Vol. 16. THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
• Vol. 17. FOLKLORE AND FABLE, AESOP, GRIMM, ANDERSON
  • by Aesop
  • by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
  • by Hans Christian Andersen
• Vol. 18. MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA
  • by John Dryden
  • by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
  • by Oliver Goldsmith
  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • by Robert Browning
  • by Lord Byron
• Vol. 19. FAUST, EGMONT, ETC. DOCTOR FAUSTUS, GOETHE, MARLOWE
  • , by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • , by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • , by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Vol. 20. THE DIVINE COMEDY, DANTE
  • by Dante Alighieri
• Vol. 21. I PROMESSI SPOSI
  • by Alessandro Manzoni
• Vol. 22. THE ODYSSEY, HOMER
  • by Homer
• Vol. 23. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST, DANA
  • by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
• Vol. 24. ON THE SUBLIME, FRENCH REVOLUTION, ETC., BURKE
  • , by Edmund Burke
• Vol. 25. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, ETC., ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES, J.S. MILL, T. CARLYLE
  • , by John Stuart Mill
  • , by Thomas Carlyle
• Vol. 26. CONTINENTAL DRAMA
  • by Pedro Caldern de la Barca
  • by Pierre Corneille
  • by Jean Racine
  • by Molire
  • by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
  • by Friedrich von Schiller
• Vol. 27. ENGLISH ESSAYS: SIDNEY TO MACAULAY
• • by Sir Philip Sidney
  • by Ben Jonson
  • , by Ben Jonson
  • by Abraham Cowley
  • by Joseph Addison
  • by Joseph Addison
  • by Sir Richard Steele
  • by Jonathan Swift
  • by Jonathan Swift
  • by Jonathan Swift
  • by Jonathan Swift
  • by Daniel Defoe
  • by Daniel Defoe
  • by Samuel Johnson
  • by David Hume
  • by Sydney Smith
  • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • by William Hazlitt
  • by Leigh Hunt
  • by Leigh Hunt
  • by Charles Lamb
  • by Thomas De Quincey
  • by Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • by Thomas Babington Macaulay

• Vol. 28. ESSAYS: ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
• • by William Makepeace Thackeray
  • The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman
  • by Matthew Arnold
  • Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin
  • by Walter Bagehot
  • by Thomas Henry Huxley
  • by Edward Augustus Freeman
  • by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes by William Ellery Channing
    • by Edgar Allan Poe
  • by Henry David Thoreau
  • by James Russell Lowell
  • by James Russell Lowell

• Vol. 29. VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE, DARWIN
• • by Charles Darwin
• Vol. 30. FARADAY, HELMHOLTZ, KELVIN, NEWCOMB, ETC
  
• • by Michael Faraday
    
  • by Hermann von Helmholtz
    
  • by Lord Kelvin
    
  • by Simon Newcomb
    
  • by Sir Archibald Geikie
    
• Vol. 31. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BENVENUTO CELLINI
  
• • 
    
• Vol. 32. LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
  
• • , by Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
  • , by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
  • , by Ernest Renan
  • , by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
  • , by Friedrich von Schiller
  • , by Immanuel Kant
  • , by Giuseppe Mazzini
• Vol. 33. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS
  
• • , by Herodotus
  • , by Tacitus
  • , by Philip Nichols
  • , by Francis Pretty
  • , by Captain Walter Bigges
  • , by Edward Haies
  • , by Sir Walter Raleigh
• Vol. 34. FRENCH AND ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS, DESCARTES, VOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU, HOBBES
  
• • , by Ren Descartes
  • , by Voltaire
  • , by Jean Jacques Rousseau
  • , by Thomas Hobbes
• Vol. 35. CHRONICLE AND ROMANCE, FROISSART, MALORY, HOLINSHEAD
  
• • , by Jean Froissart
  • , by Sir Thomas Malory
  • , by William Harrison
• Vol. 36. MACHIAVELLI, MORE, LUTHER
  
• • , by Niccol Machiavelli
  • , by William Roper
  • , by Sir Thomas More
  • , by Martin Luther
• Vol. 37. LOCKE, BERKELEY, HUME
  
• • , by John Locke
  • , by George Berkeley
  • , by David Hume
• Vol. 38. HARVEY, JENNER, LISTER, PASTEUR
  
• • , by Ambroise Par
  • , by William Harvey
  • , by Edward Jenner
  • , by Oliver Wendell Holmes
  • , by Joseph Lister
  • , by Louis Pasteur
  • , by Charles Lyell
• Vol. 39.
  
• Vol. 40.
  
• Vol. 41.
  
• Vol. 42.
  
• Vol. 43.
  
• Vol. 44. SACRED WRITINGS 1
  
• • Confucian:
  • Hebrew:
  • Christian I:
• Vol. 45. SACRED WRITINGS 2
  
• • Christian II:
  • Hindu: The
  • Mohammedan:
• Vol. 46. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 1
  
• • , by Christopher Marlowe
  • , by William Shakespeare
  • , by William Shakespeare
  • , by William Shakespeare
  • , by William Shakespeare
• Vol. 47. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 2
  
• • , by Thomas Dekker
  • , by Ben Jonson
  • , by Beaumont and Fletcher
  • , by John Webster
  • , by Philip Massinger
• Vol. 48. THOUGHTS AND MINOR WORKS, PASCAL
  
• • , by Blaise Pascal
• Vol. 49. EPIC AND SAGA
  
• Vol. 50. INTRODUCTION, READER'S GUIDE, INDEXES
• Vol. 51.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who published the "New England Courant." To this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its nominal editor. But the brothers quarreled, and Benjamin ran away, going first to New York, and thence to Philadelphia, where he arrived in October, 1723. He soon obtained work as a printer, but after a few months he was induced by Governor Keith to go to London, where, finding Keith's promises empty, he again worked as a compositor till he was brought back to Philadelphia by a merchant named Denman, who gave him a position in his business. On Denman's death he returned to his former trade, and shortly set up a printing house of his own from which he published "The Pennsylvania Gazette," to which he contributed many essays, and which he made a medium for agitating a variety of local reforms. In 1732 he began to issue his famous "Poor Richard's Almanac" for the enrichment of which he borrowed or composed those pithy utterances of worldly wisdom which are the basis of a large part of his popular reputation. In 1758, the year in which he ceases writing for the Almanac, he printed in it "Father Abraham's Sermon," now regarded as the most famous piece of literature produced in Colonial America.