Answe rBenjamin Franklin's Autobiography is both an important historical document and Franklin's major literary work. It was not only the first autobiography to achieve widespread popularity, but after two hundred years remains one of the most enduringly popular examples of the genre ever written. As such, it provides not only the story of Franklin’s own remarkably influential career, but maps out a strategy for self-made success in the context of emerging American nationhood. The resume the work. This James copy of the outline (now at the Morgan Library and Museum) became Franklin's working copy as he completed Parts Two, Three and Four of the Autobiography. At some point between 1782 and 1786, Franklin's French friend Louis Guillaume Le Veillard acquired copies of James's letter and Franklin's working outline. And in 1786, Thomas Jefferson borrowed Le Veillard's copies, as well as some additional notes on Franklin's life taken down by Le Veillard in French, to make further copies of his own. Jefferson's copies were prepared by his secretary, William Short, and are included in the Thomas Jefferson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.