The Private Franklin: The Man and His Family

xv, 361 pp. "Benjamin Franklin is best known to Americans as the strait-laced, moralizing author of Poor Richard & as the lascivious but highly successful spokesman in Paris for the rebellious American colonies. Here we see Franklin dealing with domestic & business concerns--as a businessman & a familyman. He could be insensitive to his immediated family--refusing permission for his only daughter to marry the man she loved; ignoring pleas that he return from England to his wife of 40 years when she was dying; renouncing his relationship with his son who remained loyal to England when Benjamin embraced the cause of American independence."