Written between 1771 and 1790, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is an unfinished record of Franklin's rich life history and the legacy he built in his scientific and political career. The classic memoir was published after Franklin passed away. The autobiography is divided into four parts, with each part chronicling the events from different time periods when he wrote it. The first part of the book contains letters that he wrote to his son, William, detailing their lineage and his stay in England. Franklin wrote the second part while he was still in France; his relations soured with William after the Revolutionary War. In the third part, he chronicled his return to America where he records all the progress achieved by his country. The fourth part, however, remains incomplete and only contains notable events from the last year of Franklin's life.
Franklin's autobiography continues to inspire generation after generation of readers across the world. Interestingly, in the introduction to the 1916 edition of the biography, the editor F.W. Pine wrote that it provided the "most remarkable of all the remarkable histories of our self-made men", with Franklin as the greatest example of the "self-made man".