cover image The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 1: Journalist, 1706–1730; Vol. 2: Printer and Publisher, 1730–1747

The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 1: Journalist, 1706–1730; Vol. 2: Printer and Publisher, 1730–1747

J. A. Leo Lemay, . . Univ. of Pennsylvania, $39.95 (648pp) ISBN 978-0-8122-3855-6

Veteran Franklin scholar Lemay offers a highly detailed examination of the life of one of the most fascinating of America's founders. In volume one we meet a precociously clever Franklin, who first experimented with a kite around age 12 and at the ripe old age of 16 wrote his polemical Silence Dogood essays, which established his place in the American literary firmament. Lemay usefully situates Franklin in 18th-century mores, but too often loses sight of the forest for the trees. An entire chapter is devoted to Franklin's brother James, who undoubtedly had a huge influence on his sibling, but the chapter isn't tightly connected to Ben. In volume two Lemay recreates Franklin's personal life: the birth of his illegitimate son, William (Franklin scholars have speculated endlessly about the identity of William's mother; Lemay guesses she was the wife of one of Franklin's friends); Franklin's marriage to Deborah Read, whom he praised as a "plain country" woman, and "the Joy of my Life," and the death of Franklin's father, Josiah. Franklin's civic side also emerges. Lemay describes his affiliation with the Freemasons and argues (in contrast to some earlier biographers) that Franklin was actively interested in political squabbles in Pennsylvania throughout the 1740s. The liveliest chapter focuses on Franklin's role in the establishment of Philadelphia's Library Company; the great library was, in some ways, Franklin's church, a "manifestation of Franklin's belief in democracy and egalitarianism." Frustratingly, Lemay breaks up chapters into countless short subsections, disrupting the narrative flow. Scholars will find these volumes informative, but general readers will do better with livelier, more compact books by Walter Isaacson, Edmund Morgan or Gordon Wood. (Oct.)