The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, credited to Benjamin Franklin, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin. Read in English by Duane Desalvo; Tommy Hersant; Seth Pate; Ciufi Galeazzi; Elijah Fisher; Kathleen Moore; KevinS; Greg Giordano The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his Memoirs. Although it had a tortuous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written. Franklin's account of his life is divided into four parts, reflecting the different periods at which he wrote them. There are actual breaks in the narrative between the first three parts, but Part Three's narrative continues into Part Four without an authorial break (only an editorial one). In the "Introduction" of the 1916 publication of the Autobiography, editor F. W. Pine wrote that Franklin's biography provided the "most remarkable of all the remarkable histories of our self-made men" with Franklin as the greatest exemplar. - Summary by wikipedia

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• Author credits: Benjamin Franklin
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 21
• Listed recording duration: 7:17:08

Catalogue topics

• history
• american

Track guide

1. 00 - Introduction — 19:08
2. 01 - Ancestry and Early Life in Boston — 27:28
3. 02 - Beginning Life as a Printer — 20:36
4. 03 - Arrival in Philadelphia — 15:18
5. 04 - First Visit to Boston — 17:38
6. 05 - Early Friends in Philadelphia — 9:54
7. 06 - First Visit to London — 27:46
8. 07 - Beginning Business in Philadelphia — 34:36
9. 08 - Business Success and First Public Service — 25:31
10. 09 - Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection — 33:17
11. 10 - "Poor Richard's Almanac" and Other Activities — 18:39
12. 11 - Interest in Public Affairs — 17:30
13. 12 - Defense of the Province — 20:28
14. 13 - Public Services and Duties — 33:05
15. 14 - Albany Plan of Union — 5:25
16. 15 - Quarrels with the Proprietary Governors — 8:32
17. 16 - Braddock's Expedition — 27:02
18. 17 - Franklin's Defense of the Frontier — 21:16
19. 18 - Scientific Experiments — 10:02
20. 19 - Agent of Pennsylvania in London — 40:41
21. 20 - Appendix — 3:16

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.