Section 9: Publishing the First Complete “Autobiography”: Paris 1828

In 1983, the Library Company of Philadelphia acquired an unusual copy of an 1818 French translation of the English edition of the memoirs published by Franklin’s grandson earlier that year. Nearly every page of these two volumes has been heavily marked up by an editor revising the translation, and then it was marked up further by the printers who used it to set type for a new edition. The revisions were made by Augustine Charles Renouard and the new edition was published by his brother Jules in 1828. In this 1828 edition, the fourth part of Franklin’s “autobiography” was printed for the first time, using Franklin’s own revised manuscript. This was the first edition to include the complete text, albeit in translation. It was only in 1868, after the manuscript had finally been brought back to America, that it became the basis for the first complete edition in English.

 

 

Benjamin Franklin, Mémoires sur la Vie Privée de Benjamin Franklin, Écrits par Lui-Même. Traduction Nouvelle [trans. Augustin-Charles Renouard] (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1828).

The new translation of the Autobiography published in 1828 by the Renouard brothers was the first to include the few pages now called the fourth part and in this edition called the third part. The footnote below reads, “This piece is published for the first time, which has never been printed either in English or in French; it was translated from the original manuscript, which … belongs to the family of M. LeVeillard, intimate friend of Franklin.” Thus it is the first complete edition and the first to make use of Franklin’s own manuscript.

 

Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin… Now First Published from the Original MSS. (London: Printed for Henry Colburn, British and Foreign Public Library, 1818).

Although Franklin’s grandson claimed to have used “the original mss.” for his edition of the Autobiography, he was in fact working from a copy of an early version of Franklin’s manuscript, which lacked the fourth part. He had received it from Franklin’s friend Le Veillard, to whom he gave the original manuscript in exchange.

 

Benjamin Franklin, Mémoires sur la Vie et les Écrits de Benjamin Franklin (Paris: Treuttel et Würtz; Strasbourg: Maison de Commerce; London: H. Colburne, 1818).

William Temple Franklin ’s 1818 edition of the Autobiography was quickly translated into French. It was a bad translation, neither faithful to the English text nor colloquial in its French.

 

Benjamin Franklin, Mémoires sur la Vie Privée de Benjamin Franklin, Écrits par Lui-Même. Traduction Nouvelle [trans. Augustin-Charles Renouard] (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1828).

In 1828 the writer Augustin-Charles Renouard and his publisher brother Jules Renouard issued a new and better translation of Temple Franklin’s edition.

 

Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs (London: Henry Colburn, 1818).

Here is a sample passage from William Temple Franklin’s English edition.

 

 

Benjamin Franklin, Mémoires (Paris, 1818).

Here is the same passage from the 1818 French translation.

 

 

Benjamin Franklin, Mémoires (Paris, 1818). Marked up by Augustin-Charles Renouard for a new edition, ca. 1828.

This is the printer’s copy of the 1828 edition. The hundreds of changes were made in manuscript by the Renouard brothers. Also the names of two compositors, Tonner and Turquis, are written next to the passages they set in type. Those notes were used to calculate their wages and to assign responsibility when it came to making corrections.

 

Benjamin Franklin, Mémoires (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1828).

Here are the pages printed from the marked up copy described above.

 

 

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, edited from his manuscript…by John Bigelow (Philadelphia: .B. Lippincott; London: Trubner & Co., 1868).

The first complete edition of the Autobiography in English, based on Franklin’s original manuscript.