The Loyal Son

The Loyal Son
Author :
Publisher : Ballantine Books
Total Pages : 470
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780345544223
ISBN-13 : 0345544226
Rating : 4/5 (226 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Loyal Son by : Daniel Mark Epstein

Download or read book The Loyal Son written by Daniel Mark Epstein and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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


The Loyal Son Related Books

The Loyal Son
Language: en
Pages: 470
Authors: Daniel Mark Epstein
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-05-30 - Publisher: Ballantine Books

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 T
Loyal Sons
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Jim Lefebvre
Categories: Football
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Foreword by Don Miller Jr. & Harry Stuhldreher Jr. Afterword by Patrick Crowley & Elmer Layden Jr." -- Jkt.
Shep
Language: en
Pages: 34
Authors: Sneed B. Collard
Categories: Juvenile Nonfiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-08-15 - Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Reliability, devotion and faithfulness: endearing qualities shared between people and their canine companions. Shep is the true story of a dog that became an in
William Franklin
Language: en
Pages: 385
Authors: Sheila L. Skemp
Categories: American loyalists
Type: BOOK - Published: 1990 - Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A biography of Benjamin Franklin's son, William, who remained a loyalist.
The Loyal Son
Language: en
Pages: 466
Authors: Daniel Mark Epstein
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-06-05 - Publisher: Ballantine Books

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 T