HKB
"Benjamin Franklin," in Shelburne Essays, Fourth Series. New York: 1906, pp. 129-55. (Provocative appraisal: stresses Franklin's "contemporaneity," his tendency to be oblivious to the past--a suggestive, if a moot point.)
Morgan, W. Memoirs of the Life of Rev. Richard Price. London: 1815. (Notes on Franklin's relations with Price during early 1760's; meetings at Royal Society and London Coffee-house.)
Mottay, F. Benjamin Franklin et la philosophie pratique. Paris: 1886. (Good model for citizens of a free nation and "le véritable catechisme de l'homme vertueux." Also several just remarks on his style which possesses "les mots épiques d'un Corneille et les élégantes périphrases d'un Racine.")
Moulton, C. W., ed. Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors. Buffalo, N. Y.: 1901. IV, 79-106. (Stimulating assembly of extracts which aids student in discovering the history of Franklin's reputation.)
Mustard, W. P. "Poor Richard's Poetry," Nation, LXXXII, 239, 279 (March 22, April 5, 1906). (Indicates Franklin's borrowings from Dryden, Pope, Prior, Gay, Swift, and others.)
Nichols, E. L. "Franklin as a Man of Science," Independent, LX, 79-84 (Jan. 11, 1906). (Franklin's mind "turned ever by preference to the utilitarian and away from the theoretical and speculative aspects of things.")
"Notice sur Benjamin Franklin," in Œuvres posthumes de Cabanis. Paris: 1825, pp. 219-74. (Representative in its rapturous eulogy.)
Oberholtzer, E. P. The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: 1906. (Chap. II, "The Age of Franklin," written with conservative bias, belabors Franklin who as a statesman "was almost as wrong as Paine and Mirabeau." What Voltaire was to France, Franklin was to his native city and state.)
Oswald, J. C. Benjamin Franklin in Oil and Bronze. New York: 1926. ("Probably the features and form of no man who ever lived were delineated so frequently and in such a variety of ways as were those of Benjamin Franklin." Best survey of its kind, including many excellent reproductions.)
Oswald, J. C. Benjamin Franklin, Printer. Garden City, N. Y.: 1917. (Fullest and ablest account of this phase of Franklin's life.)
Owen, E. D. "Where Did Benjamin Franklin Get the Idea for His Academy?" Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LVIII, 86-94 (Jan., 1934). (Inconclusive evidence attributing it to Dr. Philip Doddridge.)
*Parker, Theodore. "Benjamin Franklin," in Historic Americans. Ed. with notes by S. A. Eliot. Boston: 1908 [written in 1858]. (Franklin "thinks, investigates, theorizes, invents, but never does he dream." Although Parker, an idealist and reformer, exalts "the sharp outline of his [Franklin's] exact idea," his humanitarianism, his combining the "rare excellence of Socrates and Bacon" in making things "easy for all to handle and comprehend," he concludes that Franklin is "a saint devoted to the almighty dollar." There are few more readable estimates.)
*Parrington, V. L. "Benjamin Franklin," in The Colonial Mind, 1620-1800. New York: 1927, pp. 164-78. (Emphasizes Franklin's tendencies toward agrarian democracy; Parrington's indifference to the genetic approach and his chronic economic determinism lead him to slight the primary importance of Franklin's religious and philosophic views in conditioning his other activities.)
Pennington, E. L. "The Work of the Bray Associates in Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LVIII, 1-25 (Jan., 1934). (Franklin's humanitarian interest in negro education. In 1758 he writes from London urging school for instructing young Negroes in Philadelphia.)
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XXV, 307-22, 516-26 (1901), XXVI, 81-90, 255-64 (1902). (Reprints one of Dean Tucker's pamphlets with Franklin's annotations. Casts light on Franklin's loyalty to the Crown, while rebellious against Parliament.)
Potamian, Brother, and Walsh, J. J. Makers of Electricity. New York: 1909. ("Franklin and Some Contemporaries," chapter II, pp. 68-132, by Brother Potamian, is an excellent survey of Franklin's contributions to the science of electricity.)
Powell, E. P. "A Study of Benjamin Franklin," Arena, VIII, 477-91 (Sept., 1893). (Fair survey of Franklin as a diplomatist.)