page_title: Poor Richard's Almanack
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Poor Richard's Almanack / History
caption_attribution_description: Lithograph of "Poor Richard illustrated, lessons for the young and old on industry, temperance, frugality &amp;c. by Benjamin Franklin" (Print showing a small portrait of Benjamin Franklin, surrounded by 24 vignettes illustrating maxims taken from his writings.)
context_page_description: Poor Richard's Almanack was a yearly almanac published by Benjamin Franklin, who adopted the pseudonym of "Poor Richard" or "Richard Saunders" for this purpose. The publication appeared continually from 1732 to 1758. It sold exceptionally well for a pamphlet published in the Thirteen Colonies; print runs reached 10,000 per year.
  Franklin, the American inventor, statesman, and publisher, achieved success with Poor Richard's Almanack. Almanacks were very popular books in colonial America, offering a mixture of seasonal weather forecasts, practical household hints, puzzles, and other amusements. Poor Richard's Almanack was also popular for its extensive use of wordplay, and some of the witty phrases coined in the work survive in the contemporary American vernacular.
context_section_description: Franklin published the first Poor Richard's Almanack on December 28, 1732, and continued to publish new editions for 25 years, bringing him much economic success and popularity. The almanack sold as many as 10,000 copies a year. In 1735, upon the death of Franklin's brother, James, Franklin sent 500 copies of Poor Richard's to his widow for free, so that she could make money selling them.
caption: A nineteenth-century print based on Poor Richard's Almanack, showing the author surrounded by twenty-four illustrations of many of his best-known sayings.
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