Benjamin Franklin: The shaping of genius : the Boston Years

I passed over Tourtellot's book the first time around--he seemed to pack a lot of extraneous stuff in his book. But then I looked deeper and found it to be both profound and convincing. He truly does deliver what he promises in his book title: Benjamin Franklin, The Shaping of Genius, The Boston Years. For example, in the chapter on The Emergence of Silence Dogood, the author not only describes the writing style Franklin developed for his character but gives side-by-side examples of similarities with Addison's The Spectator, Checkley in The Courant and Franklin in Dogood, No. 1. So if you want to understand more deeply how Franklin developed as he did in those early Boston years, you cannot do better than to immerse yourself in Tourtellot's fine book. Lu Ann Darling, author of Discover Your Mentoring Mosaic, A Guide to Enhanced Mentoring