From 1771 to his death in 1790, Benjamin Franklin was in the process of writing what he referred to as his Memoirs. Portions of the unfinished work were published posthumously as Memoirs of the Private Life of Benjamin Franklin, first in French in 1791, and then in English in 1793. Today the complete unfinished manuscript is known as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and is considered one of the most famous and influential examples of autobiography ever written.

In the heart of the work, Franklin wrote of his "bold and arduous Project of arriving at Perfection" when...