A contemporary once described Benjamin Franklin as a “singular man of peculiar character and extraordinary talents.” But he preferred to be known as “B. Franklin, Printer.” Everything about Adler’s absorbing biography captures this “singular man” and his times. The engaging narrative uses well-selected direct quotes from Franklin, his family, his friends, and his colleagues. Adler culled these with careful research into primary and secondary sources. The beautifully designed volume also gives a sense of Ben Franklin by employing typeface and typographical devices from his own printed papers and monographs. With interests ranging from politics and civics to mathematical puzzles and scientific thought, Franklin was a true Renaissance man. Adler brings to life this intelligent, witty, slightly eccentric freethinker who, despite his great successes, always thought of himself as a common man. (Ages 9–14)

At the age of twenty-two, Benjamin Franklin wrote his own epitaph. Scientist, inventor, and statesman, and the only man who would sign the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the treaty with France that helped win the Revolutionary War, and the treaty with England that ended it, wanted to be remembered simply as "B. Franklin, printer."