Franklin: A Sketch

Bigelow, John, 1817-1911Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 64K words
Chapters: 7

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Franklin: A Sketch by John BigelowAuthor: Bigelow, John, 1817-1911,Language: English, Class: E300: History: America: Revolution to the Civil War (1783-1861), Release Date: Sep 7, 2012

Editor's review

This book is a biographical sketch of the American founding father Benjamin Franklin by John Bigelow, belonging to the nineteenth-century type of concise biography that weighs character and achievement together. The author was himself a lawyer, diplomat, and man of letters with a long-standing interest in early American political history, so his account of Franklin follows both political practice and personal cultivation. Rather than listing the life year by year, the book unfolds around Franklin's multiple roles in business, science, public affairs, and diplomacy; the language is plain and the material clearly organized, making it a suitable introduction to Franklin the man. Because it was written early, the prose has the elegance and slower pace of nineteenth-century English essays, and readers can enjoy the narrative pleasures of early biography. As a public-domain Project Gutenberg e-book it is easy to obtain, a light choice for reading an English original, and convenient for history enthusiasts and English learners to study chapter by chapter.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who want to know Franklin's life and character through an English original
General readers with a beginning interest in the history of the American Revolution
Learners who want a short, clearly structured English biography
Teachers needing public-domain English material for history or English lessons

Not a good fit for

Specialists expecting detailed scholarship and modern academic annotation
Readers who prefer contemporary plain-language narration and a fast pace
Beginners with weak English reading skills who find nineteenth-century style hard to follow

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and chapter titles first to see which of Franklin's roles the book centers on, then read according to interest.
After each chapter, summarize its main events and the author's judgments in two or three sentences to keep the thread clear.
When you meet nineteenth-century diction or long sentences, read the whole paragraph through before looking back, rather than pausing at every word.
Read alongside Franklin's autobiography or a chronology of the American Revolution to strengthen the historical context.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book Franklin's autobiography?

No. It is a biographical sketch of Franklin by John Bigelow, an evaluative biography from another person's perspective, not an autobiography written by Franklin himself. It focuses on surveying Franklin's life achievements and character; readers who want a first-person account should look for The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Reading the two together gives both the subject's own account and a later commentator's view.

How difficult is the English, and what level is it suitable for?

The book was written in the nineteenth century in fairly elegant English prose, with longer sentences and more formal diction, but its overall structure is clear and its narration plain. It suits readers with reading ability at college English Test Band 4 or above who are willing to adjust to an older style. If vocabulary is limited, read a Chinese translation first to grasp the content, then return to the English original to lower the threshold.

What should I keep in mind when reading it as a public-domain e-book?

The book is published by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain electronic text and can be obtained free of charge. Different editions may differ in layout, paragraphing, and punctuation; focus on understanding the content rather than worrying about minor formatting issues. If quoting the text, check the page or chapter references of the specific edition, and note that public-domain texts may lack modern scholarly notes and bibliographies.

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About the author

Bigelow, John, 1817-1911 Author · American · 1817–1911

John Bigelow (1817–1911) was an American journalist, diplomat, and writer who served as minister to France. He was long active in nineteenth-century American public affairs and letters, combining a career in journalism with diplomatic practice. His representative work, Franklin: A Sketch, is a biographical study of Benjamin Franklin that outlines its subject's life and achievements in a concise manner. Because public information is limited, details of his early education, specific official posts, and other writings cannot be described here, and only one of his works is held in this collection. Judging from the work available, his writing leans toward biography and historical narrative, emphasizing a clear presentation of factual sequence in plain, readable prose, offering readers a brief introductory account of Franklin.