More often than not, a writer of history has to choose either to entertain the masses or to fill a hole in some subject’s scholarly literature. George Goodwin’s new Benjamin Franklin in London has the dust jacket of the former but the minute detail of the latter. It is not a book to be entered into casually.
The book starts off deceptively light and readable. The first fifty or so pages are a concise and snappy summation of the first half of Franklin’s life—his birth in 1706 in Boston, his first forays into publishing, his departure for Pennsylvania, Poor Richard’s Almanack and Franklin’s rise to fame, his role in founding the University of Pennsylvania and his entrance into politics, his remarkably imaginative approach to science and philosophy, and his dedication to freedom and the rights of American Englishmen. It’s a first-rate hemi-biography. And interestingly, its sharpest passage is the discussion of Franklin’s first, brief expedition to London in his late teenage years. Not the book’s subject, but a prelude to it.
In 1724, after a falling out with his older brother James—the printer who taught Benjamin his trade—the younger Franklin struck out for Philadelphia. His own burgeoning reputation as both a printer and an uncommonly witty aphorist, which had been the source of his fraternal tension, brought him quickly to the attention of Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, Sir William Keith. To Franklin’s surprise, Keith proposed setting up the 18-year-old as the official printer of the Commonwealth. In order to get started, Keith suggested Franklin travel to London to buy printing equipment. When both Franklin and his father expressed misgivings, Keith offered a letter of credit to fund the trip and seed Franklin’s business.
In early November 1724, Franklin was aboard a ship set to sail for England, but Keith’s letter of credit had not yet arrived. At the last moment before the ship weighed anchor, a Colonel French delivered a parcel of dispatches from the governor’s office, setting Franklin’s mind at ease—but when the ship, named London Hope, arrived in London seven weeks later, Franklin discovered that not only did the dispatches not include Keith’s letter of credit, but that no such letter would be forthcoming: A Quaker merchant whose acquaintance Franklin made aboard-ship informed Franklin that “Keith was a man with no credit to give… For some unfathomable reason, Keith had sent Franklin on a wild goose chase.”
Showing some of the determination for which he would become famous, Franklin shrugged off Keith’s peculiar betrayal and found himself a job at a London printing house. He began to build an English reputation to match the one he’d built in the colonies, and his employers quickly discovered their coup in hiring a “Water-American”: unlike the average London printer, who would drink six pints of beer over the course of a work day, Franklin did his typesetting sober. He was smarter and worked harder than his native peers—and (amusingly) much stronger, being able to carry “double” what his English colleagues could. Before long, a Pennsylvanian expatriate caught wind of Franklin’s unusual ethic and offered not only to send Franklin home at his own expense, but to employ Franklin as his agent in Pennsylvania until the young printer could re-establish himself.
Franklin had been stranded in London for 19 months. On his trip home, he wrote his “Plan of Conduct,” a first draft of what would become a life-long self-improvement project. It boiled down to four points: To be frugal until he had paid all the debts his London goose-chase had incurred, to “endeavor to speak truth in every instance,” to apply himself “industriously” to any job he undertook, and “to speak ill of no man whatever.”
That Franklin could manage such equanimity after so trying an experience is a testament to what a truly remarkable man he was. And it makes for fascinating reading — as do all of Franklin’s youthful adventures. But then Goodwin’s account shifts from entertainment to dissertation.
Which isn’t to say it’s somehow defective. It isn’t. American history needs serious scholarship just as much as it needs good yarns. Goodwin’s extravagantly researched, painstakingly assembled recounting of Mr. Franklin’s second London sojourn—during the 25 years directly before the American Revolution—will doubtless become an essential source for anyone researching either Franklin or that period in English society. But anyone whose curiosity falls short of that is likely to find himself wading through information in which he has little interest.
This might be unfair criticism. After all, the book is not quite 300 pages, and makes no bones about its subject: it tells the story of Franklin in London, and his efforts first to secure rights for the citizens (and the legislators) of Pennsylvania—who were still partly subject to the Penn family—and later, to secure relief from the Stamp Act. In between are Franklin’s personal and private goings-on—his propping up of poor relatives, for instance, and his importation of American apples. The detail is exhaustive, and at times, to the casual reader, exhausting.
Benjamin Franklin in London is a fine book. How likely you are to enjoy it, though, depends entirely on how quenchable your thirst for Franklin trivia is. In this case, you have to be careful not to judge the book by its colorful cover. This is not a popular history.
Joshua Gelernter is a writer in Connecticut.
