The Question and Answer section for The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
From the text:
About this time, our club meeting, not at a tavern, but in a little room of Mr. Grace's, set apart for that purpose, a proposition was made by me, that, since our books were often referr'd to in our disquisitions upon the queries,...
Franklin's brother encouraged his poetry writing.
I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads.
James Franklin is Franklin's older brother, with whom he apprentices at the printinghouse. James and Franklin do not get along and Franklin runs away to Philadelphia.
