Critical essays on Benjamin Franklin /

Buxbaum's valuable and extensive survey of the critical attention paid to Franklin through the ages opens this important collection, especially welcome with the interest in the Constitution this year. While some of the 14 essays have been previously published (and deserve reappearing), some appear for the first time, written especially for this collection. Among those is Ormond Seavey's ``Benjamin Franklin and D.H. Lawrence as Conflicting Modes of Consciousness,'' clarifying Laurence's earlier attack (also included in this collection) on Franklin. Also new are ``Franklin's Last Years in England: The Making of a Rebel,'' ``Benjamin Franklin's Economic Thought: A Twentieth Century Appraisal,'' and ``Franklin's Religion.'' Four particularly provocative essays, three by foreign observers, conclude the collection in a section titled ``Views from Abroad.'' This volume is of certain interest and significant value wherever Franklin is read, studied, admired, or argued about. Notes follow each essay and the book is indexed. Appropriate for students at and above secondary school level.-G.S. Rosselot, University of North Carolina at Wilmington