The Loyal Son Audiobook Summary
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
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The Loyal Son Audiobook Narrator
Scott Brick is the narrator of The Loyal Son audiobook that was written by Daniel Mark Epstein
About the Author(s) of The Loyal Son
Daniel Mark Epstein is the author of The Loyal Son
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The Loyal Son Full Details
Narrator | Scott Brick |
Length | 16 hours 27 minutes |
Author | Daniel Mark Epstein |
Category | |
Publisher | Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group |
Release date | April 28, 2024 |
ISBN | 9781524781057 |
Subjects
The publisher of the The Loyal Son is Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. includes the following subjects: gifts for history buffs, united states history books, us history, us history books, gifts for dad, books for dad, historical biography, founding fathers, American Revolution, 18th century history, Revolutionary War history, American history, American families, benjamin franklin, biography, history, history books, biographies, nonfiction books, biography autobiography, historical non fiction, culture, true story, cultural history, inspirational, society, true stories, social history, bios, non fiction, social studies, Biography & Autobiography, Historical, History, United States, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), History, United States, General The BISAC Subject Code is Biography & Autobiography, Historical
Additional info
The publisher of the The Loyal Son is Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. The imprint is Random House Audio. It is supplied by Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. The ISBN-13 is 9781524781057.
Global Availability
This book is only available in the United States.
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