"From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians--a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister, Jane, whose obscurity and poverty were matched only by her brother's fame and wealth but who, like him, was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator. Making use of an astonishing cache of little-studied material, including documents, objects, and portraits only just discovered,...

A brief biography of the eighteenth-century printer, inventor, and statesman who played an influential role in the early history of the United States.

Chronicles the founding father's life and his multiple careers as a shopkeeper, writer, inventor, media baron, scientist, diplomat, business strategist, and political leader, while showing how his faith in the wisdom of the common citizen helped forge an American national identity based on the virtues of its middle class.

There have been numerous biographies of Benjamin Franklin, including his own notorious autobiography. This is the most charming and captivating account of all. Every chapter is a bewitching gem, and Franklin lives and breathes on every page. This is the last book in Catherine Drinker Bowen's brilliant career. With this, she did not intend to write a full narrative biography. Instead she proposed to write "only what interested me about this most consistently...

Traces Franklin's life from humble beginnings to fame as a scientist, founding father, and America's first diplomat to France.