the end of , by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby's father shows the narrator a list of self-improvements that Gatsby had written down as a boy. I have always chosen to imagine that Gatsby had been inspired to this list by an early reading of Benjamin Franklin's
.
In 1771 Franklin began writing his autobiography in the form of a long letter to his son William. Franklin was at that time 65 years old and interestingly much of what he is best remembered for lay ahead rather than behind him.
Very shortly after beginning he had to stop. The American Revolution was about to take place. In 1783 the final draft for the Peace Treaty was signed and in 1784 Franklin began working on his autobiography again.
He worked on it until the winter of 1789-90 a few months before his death. Though a printer he neither printed nor had printed this milestone of American literature. Though he lived to be 84 the autobiography only chronicles his first 57 years.
For a variety of reasons it seems appropriate to me that this early