"Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ends in 1758, some thirty years before he died. Those three decades included some of the statesman's greatest triumphs, yet instead of including them in his memoir, Franklin spent the years continually revising his original text.". "Franklin on Franklin stands as the first autobiographical account of a great American life. By returning to a newly recovered early draft of the Autobiography, author Paul M. Zall strips away later layers of moralizing and revision to reveal the story as Franklin first wrote it: how a poor boy from Boston used hard work and his wits to become America's first world-class citizen. To cover Franklin's career as a diplomat and as the only signatory of all threes key documnents of the American Revolution, Zall interweaves autobiographical comments from Franklin's personal letters and private journals."--BOOK JACKET.