A biography of the eighteenth-century printer, inventor, and statesman who played an influential role in the early history of the United States.

An introduction to the life of young Benjamin Franklin describes how, as a rebellious teen in 1732, he ran away from his family and a Boston apprenticeship to Philadelphia, and how throughout subsequent decades he rose to become a distinguished statesman, renowned author and world-famous scientist.

Brings together eighteenth century etchings, artifacts, and quotations to create the effect of a scrapbook of the life of Benjamin Franklin.

"Young Benjamin Franklin wants to be a sailor, but his father won't hear of it. The other trades he tried bored him through and through. But each time he fails to find a career, he took some important bit of knowledge with him, and that tendency is exactly what made him the versatile genius we remember today." -- inside front jacket flap.