In mid-December 1732 Benjamin Franklin started to publish
Poor Richard's Almanack, a periodical that was to occupy him for twenty-five years and that would bring his publisher economic success and enormous popularity. Richard Saunders, the fictitious character conceived by Franklin as almanac-maker, was to achieve a mythological status in the popular mind because of his practical proverbs, and his precepts were to stimulate the lives of many humble immigrants who had recently arrived in the British colonies from Germany and Ireland.
In conceiving his almanac Franklin followed the traditions of almanac making that had developed in England during much of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His models were William Lilly's Merlinus Anglicus, William Winstanley's Poor Robin,
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Citation: Lena, Alberto. "Poor Richard's Almanack". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 January 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2617, accessed 22 November 2024.]
