Jill Lepore’s meticulously researched books explore violence, language, and the absences and asymmetries in the historical record. A New Yorker staff writer and chair of Harvard’s History and Literature Program, she is the author of the Carnegie Medal finalist The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death; The Story of America: Essays on Origins, an examination of the nature of history and the shaping of its narrative; New York Burning, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and The Name of War, recipient of the Bancroft Prize. Book of Ages is a detailed portrait of Jane Franklin, Benjamin’s beloved and gifted sister, who was his confidante and lifelong correspondent.