Benjamin Franklin in London

An absorbing and enlightening chronicle of the nearly two decades the American statesman, scientist, author, inventor, and Founding Father spent in the British imperial capital of colonial America


For more than one-fifth of his life, Benjamin Franklin lived in London. He dined with prime ministers, members of parliament, even kings, as well as with Britain's most esteemed intellectuals—including David Hume, Joseph Priestley, and Erasmus Darwin—and with more notorious individuals, such as Francis Dashwood and James Boswell. Having spent eighteen formative months in England as a young man, Franklin returned in 1757 as a colonial representative during the Seven Years' War, and left abruptly just prior to the outbreak of America's War of Independence, barely escaping his impending arrest.

In this fascinating history, George Goodwin gives a colorful account of Franklin's British years. The author offers a rich and revealing portrait of one of the most remarkable figures in U.S. history, effectively disputing the commonly held perception of Franklin as an outsider in British politics. It is an enthralling study of an American patriot who was a fiercely loyal British citizen for most of his life—until forces he had sought and failed to control finally made him a reluctant revolutionary at the age of sixty-nine.



George Goodwin is the author of numerous articles and two previous histories, Fatal Colours: Towton 1461 and Fatal Rivalry: Henry VIII, James IV, and the Battle for Renaissance Britain. He is currently Author in Residence at the Benjamin Franklin House in London and was a 2014 International Fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, Monticello. He lives close to London’s Kew Gardens.

This publication to be included in The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History.

The Lewis Walpole Series, published by Yale University Press with the aid of the Annie Burr Lewis Fund, is dedicated to the culture and history of the long eighteenth century (from the Glorious Revolution to the accession of Queen Victoria). It welcomes work in a variety of fields, including literature and history, the visual arts, political philosophy, music, legal history, and the history of science. In addition to original scholarly work, the series publishes new editions and translations of writing from the period, as well as reprints of major books that are currently unavailable. Though the majority of books in the series will probably concentrate on Great Britain and the Continent, the range of our geographical interests is as wide as Horace Walpole’s.