Readers of Barbara Morrow's Help For Mr. Peale (1990) or Tracey West's Mr. Peale's Bones (1994) will find the rest of this American dynamo's story equally enthralling. ""Enterprising"" is too mild a word for Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827); trained as a saddlemaker, he soon branched out into silversmithing, carriage-making, and sign painting, traveled to London to study portraiture with Benjamin West, returned to found a museum of art and natural history, developed several inventions, led this country's first commissioned scientific expedition (to excavate mastodon fossils), and, like his friend Thomas Jefferson, become a gentleman farmer, while pursuing military and political careers. He also struggled to support his large family: 11 children lived to adulthood. Drawing largely from Peale's unpublished (though available on microfiche) autobiography, Wilson expertly illuminates the times, achievements, and character of this considerate, indefatigable man who valued his domestic life at least as much as his multi-stranded career, played roles--reluctant or enthusiastic--in several historical events, and for industry, interests, and breadth of skills, made Ben Franklin look positively languid. A perceptive, long-overdue biography, illustrated with plenty of Peale's own drawings and paintings.