Catalog

Record Details

Catalog Search



The loyal son : the war in Ben Franklin's house  Cover Image Book Book

The loyal son : the war in Ben Franklin's house

Summary: Ben Franklin is the most lovable of America’s founding fathers. His wit, his charm, his inventiveness—even his grandfatherly appearance—are legendary. But this image obscures the scandals that dogged him throughout his life. In The Loyal Son, award-winning historian Daniel Mark Epstein throws the spotlight on one of the darker episodes in Franklin’s biography: his complex and confounding relationship with his illegitimate son William. When he was twenty-four, Franklin fathered a child with a woman who was not his wife. He adopted the boy, raised him, and educated him to be his aide. Ben and William became inseparable. After the famous kite-in-a-thunderstorm experiment, it was William who proved that the electrical charge in a lightning bolt travels from the ground up, not from the clouds down. On a diplomatic mission to London, it was William who charmed London society. He was invited to walk in the procession of the coronation of George III; Ben was not. The outbreak of the American Revolution caused a devastating split between father and son. By then, William was Royal Governor of New Jersey, while Ben was one of the foremost champions of American independence. In 1776, the Continental Congress imprisoned William for treason. George Washington made efforts to win William’s release, while his father, to the world’s astonishment, appeared to have abandoned him to his fate. A fresh take on the combustible politics of the age of independence, The Loyal Son is a gripping account of how the agony of the American Revolution devastated one of America’s most distinguished families. Like Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough, Epstein is a storyteller first and foremost, a historian who weaves together fascinating incidents discovered in long-neglected documents to draw us into the private world of the men and women who made America. --

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780345544216
  • Physical Description: print
    xx, 438 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 25 cm
  • Edition: First edition.
  • Publisher: New York : Ballantine Books, [2017]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note: Includes bibliographical references (pages [393]-420) and index.
Formatted Contents Note: Preface: a night journey, 1731 -- Part I. Sons of the empire -- Americans in London: September 22, 1761 -- Colonial contemporaries, 1753 -- Defenses and engagements -- Challenges, 1757 -- Triumphs -- Part II. America and her children -- America, 1763 -- A frenzy or madness -- Blood and money -- Rebellion, 1772-73 -- A thorough government man -- Two roads -- Part III. War -- Trevose, 1775 -- The last word -- The reckoning, 1776 -- Paterfamilias -- Dark night of the soul -- Part IV. Danse macabre -- The scene of action, 1778-81 -- Captain Huddy and the dance of death -- Going home -- Epilogue, 1785-1823.
Subject: Franklin, Benjamin 1706-1790
Franklin, William 1731-1813
Statesmen United States Biography
Governors New Jersey Biography
American loyalists Biography
Statesmen's children United States Biography
United States Politics and government 1775-1783
Genre: Biographies.

Available copies

  • 11 of 12 copies available at Evergreen Indiana. (Show)
  • 0 of 0 copies available at Greenwood Public Library.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 12 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date

Loading Recommendations...

  • Baker & Taylor
    Discusses the relationship between the Founding Father and his illegitimate son, a relationship that grew strained during the American Revolution.
  • Random House, Inc.
    The dramatic story of a founding father, his illegitimate son, and the tragedy of their conflict during the American Revolution—from the acclaimed author of The Lincolns.

    Ben Franklin is the most lovable of America’s founding fathers. His wit, his charm, his inventiveness—even his grandfatherly appearance—are legendary. But this image obscures the scandals that dogged him throughout his life. In The Loyal Son, award-winning historian Daniel Mark Epstein throws the spotlight on one of the more enigmatic aspects of Franklin’s biography: his complex and confounding relationship with his illegitimate son William.

    When he was twenty-four, Franklin fathered a child with a woman who was not his wife. He adopted the boy, raised him, and educated him to be his aide. Ben and William became inseparable. After the famous kite-in-a-thunderstorm experiment, it was William who proved that the electrical charge in a lightning bolt travels from the ground up, not from the clouds down. On a diplomatic mission to London, it was William who charmed London society. He was invited to walk in the procession of the coronation of George III; Ben was not.

    The outbreak of the American Revolution caused a devastating split between father and son. By then, William was royal governor of New Jersey, while Ben was one of the foremost champions of American independence. In 1776, the Continental Congress imprisoned William for treason. George Washington made efforts to win William’s release, while his father, to the world’s astonishment, appeared to have abandoned him to his fate.

    A fresh take on the combustible politics of the age of independence, The Loyal Son is a gripping account of how the agony of the American Revolution devastated one of America’s most distinguished families. Like Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough, Epstein is a storyteller first and foremost, a historian who weaves together fascinating incidents discovered in long-neglected documents to draw us into the private world of the men and women who made America.

    “The history of loyalist William Franklin and his famous father has been told before but not as fully or as well as it is by Daniel Mark Epstein in The Loyal Son. Mr. Epstein, a biographer and poet, has done a lot of fresh research and invests his narrative with literary grace and judicious sympathy for both father and son.”—The Wall Street Journal

Additional Resources