Full name: Improbable Patriot: The Secret History of Monsieur de Beaumarchais, the French Playwright Who Saved the American Revolution

Author: Harlow Giles Unger Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Biographies, Non Fiction Purchase/reserch links: Goodreads

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was an eighteenth-century French inventor, famed playwright, and upstart near-aristocrat in the court of King Louis XVI. In 1776, he conceived an audacious plan to send aid to the American rebels. What's more, he convinced the king to bankroll the project, and singlehandedly carried it out. By war's end, he had supplied Washington's army with most of its weapons and powder, though he was never paid or acknowledged by the United States. To some, he was a dashing hero--a towering intellect who saved the American Revolution. To others, he was pure rogue--a double-dealing adventurer who stopped at nothing to advance his fame and fortune. In fact, he was both, and more: an advisor to kings, an arms dealer, and author of some of the most enduring works of the stage, including The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville. Similar books: Lafayette by Harlow Giles Unger John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger The Last Founding Father by Harlow Giles Unger The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard First Light by Geoffrey Wellum The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir Rebel Yell by S. C. Gwynne The Plantagenets by Dan Jones Things We Couldn't Say by Diet Eman Jonathan Edwards by Iain H. Murray The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir Men to Match My Mountains by Irving Stone Hoover by Kenneth Whyte The Shorter Pepys by Samuel Pepys Heart of a Soldier by James B. Stewart England's Dreaming by Jon Savage A Rage for Glory by James Tertius de Kay Wilson by A. Scott Berg The Education of Ronald Reagan by Thomas W. Evans