Information on benjamin franklin biography book

Benjamin Franklin is a non-fiction biography written by literary critic and biographer Carl Van Doren. The book was originally published in by Viking Press ; it is an authoritative telling of Franklin's life that makes heavy use of his own autobiography and his later papers and essays. The book was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

He spent nearly every day exploring these archives for two years searching for information that had not yet been revealed in any Franklin biographies.

Who published the autobiography of benjamin franklin

In an early draft of the book, one of Van Doren's editors felt that the book sourced too many direct quotations from Franklin and suggested they be removed. Van Doren disagreed with this, he thought the quotations improved the writing. Benjamin Franklin released in September, to critical and commercial success. With the book's success, Van Doren met with Sidney Howard to discuss a stage adaptation for the book, however, the stage production was canceled after Sidney's tragic death in Benjamin Franklin is a narrative biography that tells the life story of Franklin through use of his autobiography and many of his essays, letters, the transcripts of events and accounts from other individuals, with additional commentary and criticism provided by Van Doren.

Much of the book is expressed through Franklin's own dialog and third-person accounts. Van Doren considered the book a potential continuation of Franklin's autobiography partially in the subject's own words, as the original was never fully completed before his death in