Benjamin Franklin - Poor Richards Almanack and Other Writings

Poor Richards

Almanack

& OTHER WRITINGS

Poor Richards

Almanack

& OTHER WRITINGS

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Edited and with an Introduction by

BOB BLAISDELL

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Mineola, New York

Copyright

Copyright 2013 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

Poor Richards Almanack and Other Writings is a new work, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2013.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790.

[Poor Richard. Selections]

Poor Richards almanack, and other writings / Benjamin Franklin ; edited and with an introduction by Bob Blaisdell.

p. cm.

Summary: A fascinating compilation of weather forecasts, recipes, jokes, and aphorisms, Poor Richards Almanack debuted in 1732. This new edition presents hundreds of Franklins maxims, along with selections from the Letters, Autobiography, and Franklins Way to Wealth. An ideal resource for writers, public speakers, and students, this practical, charming little book will delight all readers with its folk wisdomProvided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references.

eISBN-13: 978-0-486-32059-5

ISBN-10: 0-486-48449-1

I. Blaisdell, Robert. II. Title.

PS749.A6 2013

818'.102dc23

2013002922

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

48449101

www.doverpublications.com

CONTENTS

Introduction

T he most interesting American who ever lived was born in 1706 and died in 1790. The Boston-born son of a tallow-chandler had two years of schooling and a few years of apprenticeship under his older brothers stern watch before he fled New England at age seventeen and found himself almost penniless and yet ever resourceful in Philadelphia. He became a printer, writer, businessman, community activist, militia-man, scientist, diplomat, and philosopher, as well as a family man, philanderer, and social animal. Though extraordinary, our most famous and respected citizen became regarded in Europe as Americas representative man. As much as any American, he helped develop the idea of American as a national identity, and through his official and unofficial diplomacy in the 1750s and 60s he tried to bring about colonial compromise with England before becoming the budding Revolutions most eloquent and important spokesman.

Not only was he a hardworking, serious-minded joker, he was a skeptic in religion and a true believer in humankind. He never stopped developing and discovering new talents or extending his moral thinking; by the end of his long, fulfilling life he became a prominent abolitionist. Because he was able to do seemingly everything he set his mind to, Franklin became a model for all inventive, diligent creative geniusesbut convincingly pretended to be a model for the rest of us too.

Through the collected editions of his work, as the biographer Edmund S. Morgan points out, we have the opportunity today of knowing Franklins character and life better than anybody who knew him: He spoke to friends and enemies alike as he speaks to us, in writing. And we have more of what he wrote and of what was written to him than anyone at the time could have had. This anthology, however, is not a biographical representation but focuses instead on only a couple of aspects of his character: his humor, wit, and satire, and his everyday practical common-man advice. From his Autobiography we have excerpted several of his anecdotes as well as his great passage on self-improvement. (With the exception of the first entry which concerns the almanac itself, they have been arranged in the chronological order of the years he refers to rather than to the year he composed each various part.) We have included some of his joshing and frankly-spoken letters and many of his particularly funny parodies and literary impersonations. (He was adept at and seemed to enjoy writing fake public letters on human foibles and habits from the point of view of, among others, Philadelphias women.)

Our most prominent source for this collection is his series of almanacs, which through his cleverness became (after the Bible) the second most popular book in American homes in the eighteenth century. Besides being annual guides to the predicted weather, tides, moon, and stars, he, in the character of Richard Saunders (as he writes in 1747s Preface), constantly interspersd moral Sentences, prudent Maxims, and wise Sayings, many of them containing much good Sense in very few Words, and therefore apt to leave strong and lasting Impressions on the Memory of young Persons, whereby they may receive Benefit as long as they live, when both Almanack and Almanack-maker have been long thrown by and forgotten. If I now and then insert a Joke or two, that seem to have little in them, my Apology is, that such may have their Use, since perhaps for their Sake light airy Minds peruse the rest, and so are struck by somewhat of more Weight and Moment. The Verses on the Heads of the Months are also generally designd to have the same Tendency. I need not tell thee that not many of them are of my own Making. If thou hast any Judgment in Poetry, thou wilt easily discern the Workman from the Bungler. I know as well as thee, that I am no Poet born; and it is a Trade I never learnt, nor indeed could learn. If I make Verses, tis in SpightOf Nature and my Stars, I write. Why then should I give my Readers bad Lines of my own, when good Ones of other Peoples are so plenty? Tis methinks a poor Excuse for the bad Entertainment of Guests, that the Food we set before them, tho coarse and ordinary, is of ones own Raising, off ones own Plantation, &c. when there is Plenty of what is ten times better, to be had in the Market. On the contrary, I assure ye, my Friends, that I have procurd the best I could for ye, and much Good mayt do ye.

As for the dating of items: the prefaces and sayings of Poor Richards of a given year really belong to the previous year, as Franklin printed the Almanacs in the fall for the following year. We have arranged all the pieces chronologically and have usually bracketed a key or descriptive title or suggestive phrase or quotation from the work for easier reference to the often untitled or variously known works, including one of his most famous, the preface to the 1758 almanac, in which Franklin quotes an old man repeating and citing ad nauseam dozens of Poor Richards sayings. This essay has been known since then as The Way to Wealth or Father Abrahams Speech. We have provided selections from his sayings (maxims, proverbs) from every year (17331758) of his Poor Richards Almanack; the selections made simply on the basis of their wit and representativeness of his practical philosophy. As he would remark, he did not always follow his own precepts but found that striving to do so was better than not. As for his prefaces, after several hilarious ones, the busy man seemed to weary of the composing of them, and only occasionally after the 1730s found his jokiness and interest on hand. All the ones included here are complete. We have attempted to retain and reproduce for the most part his attractive and fitful spelling, capitalization, italicization, and punctuation.

Bob Blaisdell

Edmund S. Morgan. Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2002. 314.

From his Autobiography, My Almanack (1732)

In 1732 I first published my Almanack, under the Name of