New insights into the life of one of America's founding fathers are coming to light thanks to the discovery of previously unknown letters by a California professor.

Alan Houston, a political science professor at the University of California San Diego, discovered 47 letters by and about Benjamin Franklin during the last day of a research trip to the British Library in November 2007.

Houston revealed the existence of the letters in the April issue of the William and Mary Quarterly, a scholarly journal.

The professor, who has written extensively on the man perhaps best known for flying a kite in a storm, said the letters were copied from a group Franklin took to England in 1757, but which were believed lost.

They were discovered in a collection of papers that had been reproduced by Thomas Birch, secretary of the Royal Society from 1752 to 1765. His papers fill 400 volumes at the library, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Houston said the letters reveal little new information about Franklin, but they show how he successfully established a relationship with British Gen. Edward Braddock in 1755 during the French and Indian Wars.