The Bastard

The Bastard is a historical novel by John Jakes, originally published in 1974. It is the first book of a series known as The Kent Family Chronicles, or the American Bicentennial Series, and it mixes invented characters with real events and real people to tell the story of the United States in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

The story opens in November 1770 near Chavaniac in Auvergne, where seventeen-year-old Philippe Charboneau lives with his mother Marie. He is the illegitimate son of James Amberly, the sixth Duke of Kent, and the two of them travel to Kent to press his claim, which the Duke's family refuses to acknowledge. In the altercation that follows, Philippe badly injures the Duke's legitimate son, Roger, and leaves his hand crippled.

Without the money to return to France, Marie and Philippe go to London, where he learns the printing trade and begins to think about emigrating. A visit to the print shop from Benjamin Franklin strengthens the idea, while his mother still wants him to keep pursuing the inheritance, and the series goes on to follow the Kent family through the Revolution and the years beyond it.