the autobiography of benjamin franklin pages

Bigelow leaves to the reader the question whether or not William Temple Franklin was induced by the British government to withhold the manuscripts in his hands, and contents himself with stating the charge, and giving Franklin’s denial of its truth. It is supposed William Temple Franklin never observed that the final eight pages of the autograph were wanting in the Veillard copy from which he printed and he thus added another to the proofs already existing of his unfitness to edit his grandfather’s works,-an unfitness that had become a national reproach before ins edition appeared. Bigelow now gives the world must naturally become the standard version of an autobiography which, after being first fragmentarily published in French and translated into English, was later edited in imperfect and unfaithful shape by Franklin’s grandson, and is here, at last, printed from Franklin’s own manuscript, and precisely as he wrote it. Bigelow, together with the famous pastel portrait of Franklin by Dupless is, an engraving of which adorns the present volume. In 1867 this gentleman transferred it to Mr. This autograph went from Madame le Veillard, at her death, to her daughter, who, in 1834, left it to M. William Temple Franklin, who went to London as early as 1790 to prepare an edition of his grandfather’s works for publication, and who, under circumstances bringing upon him suspicions of bribery from the British government, delayed their appearance till 1817, applied to the Widow le Veillard for this copy, as being a fair one to print from, and, in return, gave her the autograph of the memoirs bequeathed him by his grandfather.

le Veillard, a French gentleman of his acquaintance (Mayor of Passy and gentilhomme ordinaire du Roi), a copy of his autobiography, which passed into the hands of his widow after M. The story is briefly this : Franklin presented to M. Franklin as he left it, and enables the present editor to supply eight pages of the original, wanting in the work as hitherto published, as well as to correct some twelve hundred corrections made by former editors in Franklin’s text.

Bigelow tells us the very interesting story of the chance which gives us now, after the lapse of half a century, the autobiography of Dr.

The autobiography of benjamin franklin pages