Benjamin Franklin: A Biography

Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A.: Random House Inc, 1983. Trade Paperback. Very Good. 6 1/2" X 9 1/2. 530 Pages Indexed. No marks or stamps. Interior text pages are flawless. Franklin had already taken to books as some men take to drink. He could never have enough of them and he was to enjoy printing them as much as he enjoyed reading them. The feel of a well- bound book, the sight of a well-laid-out page, continued to excite him throughout the whole of his life. Once he turned his mind to a project, be it the success of a printing business, investigation of electricity, or reconciliation of American and British interests, all else tended to take second place. From his youth he was accustomed to playing a rough game in what was, admittedly, a rough age. But he tended to dissimulate, and to carry a homemade halo for use as necessary. Certainly he, like Matthew Arnold's Shakespeare, self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honoured, self-secure; was able to move with ease from one class of society to another, from one occupation to another, and from the theory of negative and positive electricity to the most practical way of putting up a lightning conductor. Much of Franklin's success in France was due to character, to a homely exterior which fascinated the sophisticated French court but concealed a high ability for intrigue. But perhaps the most important factor in his success was the reputation he· had acquired a quarter of a century earlier. Franklin in France was the man whom the savants knew as a pioneer of electricity; to ordinary people he was the man who had tamed lightning. Franklin had a wig made for the occasion, found that it did not fit properly and decided to enter the royal presence of Louis XIV without either wig or the sword that was normally worn. Instead, he dressed plainly, as though he were going to dine with the President of Congress. He was something of a fatalist about his health, as was probably the case with most two-bottles-a-meal men. Contents in 14 Chapters: Printer's Apprentice, A Talent to Suceed, The Professional Amateur, Tribune of the People, Fighting the Porprietors, a Pennsylvania Interlude, Holding the Scales, The Fatal Error, Independence Claimed, Battle for Arms, Fight for Survival, The Road to Yorktown, Independence Won, and Last Days fo a Sage. Plus References and Bibliography.