Benjamin Franklin

Name: Benjamin Franklin
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: Carl Van Doren
ISBN: 9781433256042

Author: Carl Van Doren

Narrator: Patrick Cullen

Unabridged: 32 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Published: 04/22/2009

Categories: Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography

Synopsis

From his beginnings as a journalist at age sixteen to his retirement from public affairs at eightytwo, there was no break in Benjamin Franklins activity and accomplishments. A writer, inventor, and statesman, he remains unsurpassed in the range of his natural gifts and the important uses to which he put them.In this Pulitzer Prizewinning biography, Carl Van Doren incorporates materials from Franklins letters, manuscripts, journals, and published works to give the most accurate and comprehensive portrait ever written of this great American.

About Carl Van Doren

Carl Van Doren (1885–1950) was a critic and Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois and, in 1911, a doctorate from Columbia University, where he went on to teach for nineteen years.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carol Bakker

Among my bibliophile friends, is a subset who enjoy historical biographies. A friend loaned me this bio of Benjamin Franklin, a 1939 Pulitzer winner that occupies >800 dense pages. I flinched, but Steve loved it, so I put my head down and tucked in. Other than facts learned in grade school, my first......more

Goodreads review by Jeff

Benjamin Franklin. 1939, by Carl Van Doran. This very detailed work must surely include at least one excerpt from every documented written word that Franklin ever composed. Carl Van Doran is skilled at framing the endless supply of witty quotes giving them context and definition. The in-congruencies......more

Goodreads review by Joseph

Van Doren's biography relies heavily on long passages from the many personal letters and public writings of Benjamin Franklin. The strength of Van Doren's approach rests in the selections he offers in support of the modest narrative presented to the reader. Three aspects of Franklin's character and......more

Goodreads review by Marie

This book is an absolute masterpiece. One of the best biographies I have ever read about anyone. It is a very long book, but for good reason. There is so much detail about every aspect of Franklin's life, from his boyhood to his time as elder statesman. I learned so much about this amazing man, and......more