| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 508 words from this article are provided below; about 1072 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

J. A. Leo Lemay. The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Volume One: Journalist, 1706–1730. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2006. Pp. xiv, 549. $39.95. J. A. Leo Lemay. The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Volume Two: Printer and Publisher, 1730–1747. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2006. Pp. xiv, 647. $39.95.
J. A. Leo Lemay's projected seven-volume biography of Benjamin Franklin is a labor of love balanced by thoughtful criticism. There is nothing like it. The first two volumes, treating the years 1706–1747, mine the primary sources and engage with old and new scholarship on Franklin and his environment. Although the freehand-drawn map of Boston inside the front cover of volume one is nearly impossible to make sense of, interior illustrations are abundant and inviting.	1
The two volumes introduce the multifaceted Franklin: swimmer, vegetarian, songwriter, chess player, journalist, printer, Shaftesburian, Freemason, deist, mathematician, social critic, concerned citizen. Franklin adored John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), but also the long forgotten Logic; or the Art of Thinking (1685). Here and throughout, Lemay identifies previously unheeded influences on Franklin's wit and skepticism.	2
Brother James's irreverent New-England Courant forms the centerpiece of volume one. Benjamin, as apprentice, stuck around for 111 issues before fleeing Boston in 1723. Lemay resurrects Nathaniel Gardner, occasional coeditor of the paper whose amusing sayings are appetizers for some of Ben's more pert aphorisms as Poor Richard. Gardner's various pseudonyms—take "Jethro Sham"—still evoke a chuckle, though the best of the Courant breed of writers has to be satirist John "Mundungus" Williams, who giddily tortured the English language. James Franklin shrewdly published his writers' opponents as well, fanning the flame of local controversy to sell more newspapers. The Courant was Ben's proving ground.	3
Lemay brings all of the players and their personae to life, revisiting the issues that absorbed them, such as smallpox inoculation and abuses traced to the existing social hierarchy, led by the hypergraphic Cotton Mather. Lemay tells us that the Courant writers, as a collective, influenced Franklin more than Spectator, more than Jonathan Swift. Identifying James's "genius," he calls the Courant the first "proto-nationalistic American newspaper" (v. 1, p. 109). Its Congregationalist enemies saw its contributors in blasphemous terms, as members of an American Hell-Fire Club. The colloquy between James and the venerable Increase Mather is precious, as they argued like schoolboys whether the minister had really discontinued his subscription to the Courant, as he claimed.	4
All of this serves as a warm-up for Benjamin's subtly subversive Silence Dogood essays, which the sixteen-year-old submitted to the paper anonymously. Aside from the spur to his career, we are shown how these pieces symbolized the ascendancy of the print shop in the already very vital republic of letters. When James was jailed, and later went underground for printing material that was unacceptable to Boston's elders, Benjamin took over the paper. He learned how to gauge his audience, how to taunt, and how to achieve his intended effect.	. . .

There are about 1072 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.