Benjamin Franklin: Writer and Printer

2006 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin. His tremendous achievements encompassed roles as scientist, politician and international ambassador, but Franklin began his career as a printer, and when he retired in 1748, he had created the largest printing business in colonial America. Much of what we know about Franklin as writer and printer comes from his (unfinished) autobiography, the focus of the last part of this book. The posthumous publishing histories of this autobiography and of his work "The Way to Wealth" illuminate the transformation of Benjamin Franklin, printer and publisher, into Benjamin Franklin, author, and the most famous American writer of the nineteenth century. 'James Green and Peter Stallybrass have succeeded in an impossible task: to draw a fresh and unexpected portrait of Benjamin Franklin as writer and printer. Their deeply researched and elegantly crafted book challenges the cliches about Franklin's relation to the written word.' - Roger Chartier.