"In 1732 I first publish'd my Almanack, under the name of _Richard Saunders_; it was continu'd by me about twenty-five years, commonly call'd _Poor Richard's Almanac_. I endeavor'd to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand, that I reap'd considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand...." The price was five pence. So great was its popularity that it was found necessary to issue three editions in the first month. In 1747 we are told in a note, "This Almanack us'd to contain but 24 Pages, and now has 36; yet the Price is very little advanc'd," and to fit the new conditions the title was changed to _Poor Richard Improved_.
The _Almanac_, whose title-page is here facsimiled, was the last of the series edited by Franklin. A collection of the proverbial sentences which had "filled all the little spaces that occur'd between the remarkable days in the calendar" in former issues, were collected into one speech, supposed to be delivered by an old man, named _Father Abraham_, to the people at an auction sale. "The bringing all these scatter'd counsells thus into a focus enabled them to make a greater impression." The discourse was quickly reprinted, and is famous now under various titles, _The Speech of Father Abraham_; _The Way to Wealth_, and _La science du bonhomme Richard_. It has been translated and reprinted oftener "than any other work from an American pen." "Seventy editions of it," says Mr. Paul L. Ford, "have been printed in English, fifty-six in French, eleven in German, and nine in Italian. It has been translated into Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Welsh, Polish, Gaelic, Russian, Bohemian, Dutch, Catalan, Chinese, Modern Greek and Phonetic writing. It has been printed at least four hundred times, and is to-day as popular as ever."
Franklin borrowed for his pseudonym the name of an English "philomath" of the seventeenth century, because, as he says, he knew "that his name would hardly give it [the _Almanack_] currency among readers who still looked upon it as dealing in magic, witchcraft and astrology."
In 1747 or 1748 our author-printer entered into partnership with David Hall, who took the sole management of the business until 1766, when the firm was dissolved.