Random House, Inc.
A riveting history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science.

Brilliantly conceived as a relay of scientific stories, The Age of Wonder explores the earliest ideas and
explorers of “dynamic science”: an infinite, mysterious Nature waiting to be discovered. Three lives
dominate the book: William Herschel and his sister Caroline, whose dedication to the study of the stars
forever changed the public conception of the solar system, the Milky Way, and the meaning of the universe itself. And Humphry Davy, who, with only a grammar school education, stunned the scientific
community with his near-suicidal gas experiments, which led to the invention of the miners’ lamp and
established British chemistry as the leading professional science in Europe.

Richard Holmes’s extraordinary evocation of this age of wonder shows how great ideas and experiments—both successes and failures—were born of singular (and often lonely) dedication, and how science began to be viewed as one with the imagination. It is breathtaking in its originality, its storytelling energy, and its intellectual significance.

Baker & Taylor
A riveting history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the 18th century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science, "The Age of Wonder" explores the earliest ideas of deep time and space, and the explorers of "dynamic science": an infinite, mysterious Nature waiting to be discovered. Three lives dominate the book: William Herschel, his sister Caroline, and Humphry Davy.

Book News
The author of a number of biographies, British author Holmes presents a series of stories which collectively provide an account of the second scientific revolution, which produced a new vision--Romantic science--in 18th-century Britain. Included are chapters on botanist Joseph Banks (1743-1820), astronomers William Hershel (1738-1822) and his sister Caroline (1750-1848), 18th-century balloonists, chemist Humphry Davy (1778-1829), and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and the soul. The text also contains an alphabetically-organized list of key individuals in 18th-century science, a thematically grouped bibliography, and some 70 b&w and color reproductions. The book is academic but accessible to the general reader. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Baker
& Taylor
The winner of the Somerset Maugham Award presents the earliest ideas of the explorers of “dynamic science,” including William Herschel and his sister, Caroline, who changed the public’s ideas about stars, and Humphry Davy, who invented the miners’ lamp.

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