Benjamin Franklin on Titan Leeds and the Great Almanac Hoax, Part 2, Blog #4B
To my faithful readers,
I must admit to you that when I finished writing the entry to last week’s blog, concerning the hoax I played on Mr. Titan Leeds regarding his Almanac, I was overcome with chuckling for full on five minutes. There’s little that an old man so appreciates as the memory of his own wit and cleverness.
To continue the story, Mr. Leeds having excoriated me in the basest of terms for having suggested the precise day, date, and time of his demise, and having published said excoriation in his own almanac, it was my turn to respond. And I did.
In the next issue of my “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” I had every reason to state, or so I contended, that Mr. Leeds’s attack actually proved that he had indeed expired as I had predicted. Let me explain by quoting my thoughts on this subject from my own Almanac for 1734:
“There is however, (and I cannot speak it without Sorrow) the strongest Probability that my dear Friend is no more; for there appears in his Name, as I am assured, an Almanack for the Year 1734, in which I am treated in a very gross and unhandsome Manner; in which I am called a false Predicter, an Ignorant, a conceited Scribbler, a Fool, and a Lyar. Mr. Leeds was too well bred to use any Man so indecently and so scurrilously, and moreover his Esteem and Affection for me was extraordinary: So that it is to be feared, that Pamphlet may be only a Contrivance of somebody or other, who hopes perhaps to sell two or three Year’s Almanacks still, by the sole Force and Virtue of Mr. Leeds’s Name…(this is)…an unpardonable Injury to his Memory, and an Imposition upon the Publick.”
My readers roared with delight. And subscriptions to the “Poor Richard’s Almanac” increased appreciably.
And so, by taking a bit of the stuffing out of the blowhard that was Titan Leeds, and, by using humor on his enormous and irritating sobriety, I gained readers and helped build my business. I learned much from this, and came to use humor often across my life, and frequently with a similarly propitious effect! Today, I frequently speak of this incident when I address your modern audiences about “Ben Franklin and Marketing,” but then, this little ploy for promoting my almanac was simply an idea that worked. Next week, since we’re still on the subject of “Poor Richard,” I’ll be happy to relate how some of the wittier expressions in my almanac had their roots in more seriously held beliefs. Until then, I remain your humble and obedient servant,
Benj. Franklin
