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Title: A Companion to Benjamin Franklin

Author: David Waldstreicher

Narrator: Scott Thomsen

Format: Unabridged

Length: 25 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-19-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

This companion provides a comprehensive survey of the life, work and legacy of Benjamin Franklin - the oldest, most distinctive, and multifaceted of the founders.

Members Reviews:

A great and slightly more academic collection of perspectives on the multi-faceted Franklin...

Anyone who has studied Ben Franklin for any period of time knows that there just isn't one Franklin, there are many. His various personae, styles and dispositions seemed to suit more his current goal or project than to foster a unique and homogeneous identity. As many have said, Franklin resists easy categorization. Arguably considered the "most approachable" founding father, the one we would want to drink ale with and chat with for hours, Franklin's historical persona nonetheless remains enigmatic on many levels: ferociously serious, almost pedantic at times, childishly adolescent at others. That this highly revered, almost worshiped, wizard of electricity also wrote satirical pieces saturated with fart jokes and puns provides a case in point. As such, his prose displays familiarity and comfort with high and mighty rulers as well as with workers and laborers. Just when Franklin seems to reveal himself, another facet appears that contradicts, or at least undermines, a previous conception. Pinning him down seems impossible.

Perhaps that's why "The Cambridge Companion To Benjamin Franklin" does not attempt to sum up Franklin's work, life or philosophy. Its essays instead look at singular parts of the Franklin that reaches out to us from vast volumes of letters and mostly short literary works. Not to mention his one book, his Autobiography. The essays don't build on one another, so readers can pick up and browse with ease. Though most of the essays number 10 - 20 pages and the book itself numbers only some 200, the collected scope and depth belie the book's thin wiry spine.

Numerous topics receive attention: the fate of Franklin's library, for one. He had a wing built on his house to hold his substantial collection that reached four thousand volumes by the late 18th century. Sadly, his original house no longer stands in Philadelphia (visitors will see a large ghostly wire frame reproduction in its place), but this essay gives a good idea of what that rather modest (for a founding father, at least) dwelling may have contained. Upon Franklin's death his library stayed intact only until 1801 when the books were sold.

Essays follow on Franklin's conception of virtue, his voluminous satiric works and fictional personae, including his famous "Silence Dogood" letters, the "Speech of Miss Polly Baker," "Dialogue between Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Saxony and America," "A Conversation on Slavery" and his final 1789 work "An Address to the public" that satirizes slavery. These satires often have political or social motives, either on the state of Britain and the colonies or on a particularly polarizing topic, which America never seems to lack.

Another essay explores Franklin's alter-egos and his entry into the "republic of letters." Alter-egos apparently were preferred for print and personal names for more "serious topics." Franklin fell right into this tradition as even a cursory glance at his literary output will show.