Amazon has amazing sale prices on all versions of The Wisdom of the Flock right now. Of course, it is always available free with Kindle Unlimited too! https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+wisdom+of+the+flock
The Wisdom of the Flock was recently awarded an Honorable Mention in the Indie Fiction category of the CWA 2021 Book of the Year Awards! https://www.chicagowrites.org/book_of_the_year Thanks to The Chicago Writers Association for this Honor!!
Well – here it is September and less than 1 week until The Wisdom of the Flock goes on tour (September 6th through 17th) with the Coffee Pot Book Club. There will be 1-2 stops blog stops per day and the tour will include some brand new content – including guest blog posts, author interviews,…
The Colorado Independent Publishers Association recently honored The Wisdom of the Flock: Franklin and Mesmer in Paris with their prestigious EVVY award for 2021. TWOTF was voted the #1 book in the Historical Fiction category at this year’s EVVY’s. My sincere thanks to CIPA for this honor. And a big shout out to Kirsten Jensen…
Readers on the Manybooks website https://Manybooks.net recently selected The Wisdom of the Flock as the Best Book in the Historical Fiction genre for July 2021. You can find out more about the award here: https://manybooks.net/articles/books-of-the-month-july-2021 Many thanks to Manybooks for this honor!
The Wisdom of The Flock will be going on a blog tour in September. The first blog tour in March was a blast. I got an opportunity to meet (virtually) a lot of great bloggers and did several author interviews and guest posts. While the details of the tour are still being worked out, you…
Mesmer and Mesmerism Franz Anton Mesmer (May 23, 1734 – March 5, 1815) trained as a physician in Vienna. He was strongly influenced by the experiments of Maximillian Hell (the astronomer and Jesuit priest) on the effects of magnets on the human body. Mesmer theorized that there exists a force (or fluid – as it…
What was Paris like in the late 1700’s when Ben lived there? Paris was the 2nd largest city in Europe (after London) at that time – with a population of about 600,000 people toward the end of the 18th century. The city was then, as it is now, centered around the Île de la…
Ben’s home for almost the entire time that he was in France was the home of Jacques and Marie-Thérèse Leray in Passy. He was an aristocrat and prominent businessman with connections to the Court of King Louis XVI. She was from a noble background, mother of their five children, and homemaker at the estate. They…
Ben Franklin’s Inventions and Inventiveness Other than as a Founding Father of America, Benjamin Franklin is probably best known for his experiments with electricity. No, he didn’t invent electricity. He did find ways to characterize and tame it. He invented the lightning rod so that buildings and ships would be better protected from damage. But did…
A recent Vox video illustrates many of the historical points raised in The Wisdom of the Flock. There are a couple of historical inaccuracies but generally great information and a fun, well made video. I thought that I would share the link in case you are interested:
Historical characters often seem “one-dimensional” like cardboard cutouts. In addition to Ben, we tend to carry and perpetuate oversimplified and often incorrect stereotypes of many historical persons. This post explores some common misconceptions and the reasons why. We have already discussed in a prior post the stereotype of Ben Franklin as the “wise, corpulent, gouty…
Allegory is the expression of truths or generalizations about human existence by means of symbolic fictional figures, places or events.Many readers have asked me about the allegories used in The Wisdom of the Flock. The Featured image for this post is entitled “Unsolved Mystery”. It is by Marina Terauds. Marina was gracious enough to agree…
Continued from Part 1 Madame Helvétius was officially named Anne-Catherine de Ligniville. Her married name was Helvétius. But everyone (including Ben) called her Minette. This portrait by Louis-Michel van Loo does not have a clearly established date, but most likely pre-dates Franklin’s time in France. Here is a reproduction of a miniature of her (also younger): And…
Most of the characters portrayed in The Wisdom of the Flock were real people. A few had many likenesses made during their lifetime (e.g. Ben Franklin, Mesmer, and Marie Antoinette), but paintings, busts, ceramic medallions, and other likenesses were expensive. The were only readily available to rich people in the 1700’s. As I noted in…
Ben was born on January 17th, 1706 – or was he? According to most history books, Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17th, 1706 in Boston. However, you will sometimes see this birthdate with the addendum of N.S. or New Style. What does that mean? Well, there was a change from the (old) Julian calendar…
It’s natural to think of “olden times” as being less colorful and alive than our current age. When we think of people from the 1700’s (or any prior era for that matter), they seem to us to live in monotone black and white, without the complexity or vibrancy of present day figures. Compounding that bias…
I have been researching and writing The Wisdom of the Flock for many years now. Along the way, I have been searching for an image of Marianne Davies regularly – and in vain. Some characters portrayed in the book are easily recognizable today as they were in their own time. Such famous personages include Ben…
Portraits of Ben Franklin We are all familiar with Ben’s portrait on the 100-dollar bill: This image comes from a H.B. Hall engraving of the Joseph-Siffred Duplessis portrait of an older Benjamin Franklin – and has been used on the $100 bill from 1996 onward. But Franklin was also one of the most recognizable…
On October 26th, 1776, Benjamin Franklin, along with his grandsons Temple (age 16) and Benny (age 7), boarded the USS Reprisal to be transported to France. There, Ben would assume the position of the unofficial American ambassador to the French court of Louis XVI. Maintaining the support of France against the British was key to the success of the American Revolution…
To cover his baldplate and keep his head warm, Ben brought a fur cap with him to France.
Walter Isaacson, in his biography of Franklin, states that the cap was made of Marten fur and that Ben obtained the cap when he traveled to Canada in 1776 seeking support for American independence. He left Canada without any assurance of assistance…