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 entertaining biographical subject.” Thus the book focuses on specific scenes in Franklin’s colorful life, including his youthful discoveries with electricity, activity in the Albany Congress of 1754, nine years in London and, of course, his part in America’s revolutionary plans.