Reviewed by:

• Poor Richard's Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women behind the Founding Father by Nancy Rubin Stuart
• Ormond Seavey (bio)

With his origins both in Boston and in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin appears an anomalous being, with scholars continually trying to provide him with contexts. A figure both convivial and independent, he has [End Page 779] been at risk of shrinking to the scale of such contemporaries as Rev. William Smith, Governor Thomas Hutchinson, Joseph Breintnall, or Mather Byles. Franklin's biographers from the times of James Parton in 1864 have struggled to balance respect for his accomplishment with acknowledgment of his various errata.

So it is just the recognizably human aspect of Franklin that has been missing from treatments of him. And that critical failing may appear the more paradoxical as his own Autobiography provides considerable detail about his own shortcomings. But the errata he confesses do not amount to anything like the grounds for real feelings of hostility toward him—quitting his abusive older brother, failing to pay money due to someone named Vernon promptly, even making advances to his bigamous buddy James Ralph's current girlfriend when Ralph is out of town. The Autobiography does not in general reveal second thoughts or vulnerabilities such as the rest of us know. As with various other privileged white Americans of the eighteenth century, his thinking about slavery evolved over time from the period when he himself owned people, but he does not report the evolution of his views. It would be hard to find a writer more focused on purposive behavior. As for his revelation of himself, he appears to follow the advice offered by Poor Richard: "Let all men know thee. But no man know thee thoroughly." So those who search out Franklin's inner life must search for it in places where it might be hidden.

At only one point in his Autobiography does he acknowledge the existence of internal energies beyond the scope of his managerial acumen. Following a failed negotiation for a marriage with a Miss Godfrey, he mentions the "hard-to-be-govern'd Passion of Youth [that had] hurried me frequently into Intrigues with low Women that fell in my Way, which were attended with some Expence & great Inconvenience, besides a continual Risque to my Health by a Distemper which of all Things I dreaded, tho' by great good Luck I escaped it" (Autobiography and Other Writings, ed. Ormond Seavey [Oxford UP, 2009], 70). Following this characterization of his passional life, he describes his rapprochement with Deborah Read, formerly his early love interest but left behind in Philadelphia as he left for an interlude in London from 1724 to 1726. In the interim she had wedded a possibly bigamous potter named Rogers who was no longer on the scene. Benjamin admits that his former behavior had precipitated her luckless [End Page 780] venture into matrimony. At this point he saw no prospect for gaining a dowry. The language by which he reports his connection made to her resumes the notes of purposive action in the Autobiography: "None of the Inconveniencies happened that we apprehended, she prov'd a good & faithful Helpmate, assisted me much by attending the Shop, we throve together, and have ever mutually endeavour'd to make each other happy.—Thus I corrected that great Erratum as well as I could" (71). What great erratum he refers to appears perhaps ambiguous, but it could well be either his previous abandonment of her or his so-called "Intrigues with low Women that fell in [his] way" (70).

Franklin's proponents tiptoe delicately past this passage, with all of its lacunae and evasions. Readers might consult the late J. A. Leo Lemay's biography, which suggests by contrast that it had been Deborah Read who abandoned Benjamin in 1725 despite his admission to the contrary; Lemay based that surmise on the times that vessels departed London for Philadelphia possibly carrying his one letter to her (The Life of Benjamin Franklin [U of Pennsylvania P, 2006], 265–66...

审阅者：

• 可怜的理查德的女性：黛博拉读了南希·鲁宾·斯图尔特的《富兰克林和国父背后的其他女性》
• 奥蒙德·西维（简介）

本杰明·富兰克林出生于波士顿和费城，他显得异常，学者们不断试图为他提供背景信息。他是一个既快乐又独立的人物，[结束第 779 页]面临着缩小到威廉·史密斯牧师、托马斯·哈钦森州长、约瑟夫·布赖特纳尔或马瑟·拜尔斯等同时代人的风险。1864 年詹姆斯·帕顿时代的富兰克林传记作者一直在努力平衡对他的成就的尊重和对他的各种勘误的承认。

因此，富兰克林的治疗中缺失的正是他明显的人性一面。由于他自己的自传提供了有关他自己缺点的大量细节，因此这种严重的失败可能显得更加矛盾。但他承认的勘误表并不等于真正对他怀有敌意的理由——离开了虐待他的哥哥，没有及时向一个名叫弗农的人付款，甚至向他的重婚好友詹姆斯·拉尔夫的现任女友示好。拉尔夫出城了。这本自传一般不会揭示我们其他人所知道的第二个想法或弱点。与十八世纪其他享有特权的美国白人一样，他对奴隶制的思考从他自己拥有人民的时期开始随着时间的推移而演变，但他没有报告他的观点的演变。很难找到比他更关注有目的行为的作家了。至于他对自己的揭露，他似乎遵循了可怜的理查德提出的建议：“让所有人都认识你。但没有人彻底了解你。” 因此，那些探索富兰克林内心生活的人必须在它可能隐藏的地方寻找它。

在他的自传中，只有一处他承认内部能量的存在超出了他的管理智慧的范围。在与一位戈弗雷小姐的婚姻谈判失败后，他提到了“难以控制的青春激情，它经常促使我陷入与低等女性的阴谋之中，这些阴谋阻碍了我的道路，这些阴谋与我的方式有关”。一些费用和巨大的不便，除了我所害怕的瘟疫对我的健康造成的持续危害之外，尽管幸运的是我逃脱了它”（《自传和其他著作》，奥蒙德·西维编辑[Oxford UP，2009 ]， 70）。在描述了他的激情生活之后，他描述了他与黛博拉·里德（Deborah Read）的和解，黛博拉·里德曾是他早年的恋人，但在 1724 年至 1726 年间他前往伦敦短暂停留时，她留在了费城。在此期间，她嫁给了一位可能重婚的陶艺家，名叫罗杰斯已经不在现场了。本杰明承认，他以前的行为导致了她不幸的[第780页]婚姻冒险。此时他看不到获得嫁妆的希望。他在报告他与她的联系时所用的语言恢复了自传中的有目的行动的注释：“我们没有遇到任何不便，她是一位善良而忠实的助手，通过参加商店为我提供了很多帮助，我们一起成长，并且一直共同努力让彼此快乐。——因此我尽我所能纠正了那个伟大的勘误”（71）。他所指的重大错误似乎模棱两可，但很可能是他之前抛弃了她，或者是他所谓的“与低等女性的阴谋，阻碍了他的道路”（70）。

富兰克林的支持者小心翼翼地跳过了这段充满漏洞和回避的段落。读者可以查阅已故 JA Leo Lemay 的传记，相比之下，该传记表明是黛博拉·里德 (Deborah Read) 在 1725 年抛弃了本杰明，尽管他承认事实并非如此；勒梅的推测基于船只从伦敦出发前往费城的时间，这些船只可能载有他写给她的一封信（本杰明·富兰克林的一生[宾夕法尼亚大学 P, 2006], 265–66...