身為作家的班傑明富蘭克林 Benjamin Franklin, the Writer

曆書是每日生活的指引，有日曆、天氣預測等豐富資訊，曆書出現幾個世紀之後、在印刷術發明之後更為廣泛地流傳，在網際網路、電視、廣播問世之前，許多人都會每年定時購買曆書、瞭解假日以及月亮週期等資訊。

富蘭克林對許多事物都相當瞭解，所以在1732年他決定撰寫一本曆書，他稱之為窮漢理查的曆書，其作者是理查桑德士、但真正的身份就是班傑明富蘭克林。

窮漢理查被描繪為一個有些遲鈍、但很好笑的鄉下居民，崇尚努力工作與簡單生活，許多富蘭克林的名言都透過窮漢理查的角色說了出來，像是「欲速則不達」（haste makes waste）、「早睡早起使人健康、富有且聰明」（early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise）。

窮漢理查獲得立即的成功，富蘭克林在接下來的二十六年年年出版，每年有近一萬本的銷售量，但內容並非全部是富蘭克林親手所寫的。

An almanac is a reference book for everyday life. It's filled with information like calendars and weather forecasts. Almanacs have been around for centuries and became especially widespread after printing was invented. Before the Internet, television, and radio, many people would buy an almanac every year so they could look up things like holidays and the moon cycles.

Franklin knew lots of things about lots of things, so in 1732 he decided to write his own almanac. He called it Poor Richard's Almanac. The "author" was Richard Saunders, but it was really Franklin using another pseudonym.

Poor Richard presented himself as a slightly dull, but often funny, country fellow who believed in hard work and simple living. Many of Franklin's most famous quotes are from Poor Richard's, such as "haste makes waste" and "early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

Poor Richard's was an immediate success. Franklin published one each year for the next 26 years and sold almost 10,000 copies every year. But that wasn't all Franklin wrote.

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