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The Autobiography is a work by Benjamin Franklin that recounts the first part of his life up to age 25. Written in a mood of frustration and nostalgia, Franklin began the work in 1771, intending to soothe his wounds and justify his perceived failures in British politics. He saw it as a way to tell the world that, as a self-made man, he did not need to defer to aristocrats. Franklin resumed writing the Autobiography in 1784, after negotiating the treaty that established American independence. The work became one of the most widely read autobiographies ever published.12

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