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Sign up todayThe Age of Wonder
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Learn moreThe Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing 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.
When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes' thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution. Through the lives of William Herschel and his sister, Caroline, who forever changed the public conception of the solar system; of Humphry Davy, whose near-suicidal gas experiments revolutionized chemistry; and of the great romantic writers, from Mary Shelley to Coleridge and Keats, who were inspired by the scientific breakthroughs of their day, Holmes brings to life the era in which we first realized both the awe-inspiring and the frightening possibilities of science—an era whose consequences are with us still.
Richard Holmes is Professor of Biographical Studies at the University of East Anglia. His is a Fellow of the British Academy, has honorary doctorates from UEA and the Tavistock Institute, and was awarded an OBE in 1992. His first book, ‘Shelley: The Pursuit’, won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1974. ‘Coleridge: Early Visions’ won the 1989 Whitbread Book of the Year, and ‘Dr Johnson & Mr Savage’ won the James Tait Black Prize. ‘Coleridge: Darker Reflections’ won the Duff Cooper Prize and the Heinemann Award. He has published two studies of European biography, ‘Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer’ in 1985, and ‘Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer’ in 2000.
Gildart Jackson’s acting credits span the stage and screen. He is most often recognized for his roles as Gideon on Charmed and Simon Prentiss on General Hospital. He has also starred in numerous television shows, including CSI and Vegas, and he played the lead in the highly acclaimed independent feature film You, directed by his wife, Melora Hardin.
Reviews
“For Holmes to bring those people back to life is a great achievement…This is the finest history of science book I’ve come across.”
“In this big two-hearted river of a book, the twin energies of scientific curiosity and poetic invention pulsate on every page.”
“[An] amazingly ambitious, buoyant new fusion of history, art, science, philosophy, and biography…Holmes’ excitement at fusing long-familiar events and personages into something startlingly new is not unlike the exuberance of the age that animates his groundbreaking book.”
“Holmes’ enthralling book itself exemplifies those qualities fostered by a scientific culture: the sense of individual wonder, the power of hope, and the vivid but questing belief in a future for the globe.”
“Holmes is certainly the man to undertake this intellectual salvage operation…Ambitious…Eloquent.”
“A new model for scientific exploration and poetic expression in the Romantic period. Informative and invigorating, generous and beguiling, it is, indeed, wonderful.”
“What’s superlative about The Age of Wonder is that Holmes, author of vivid biographies of Shelley and Coleridge, takes the air out of the terms ‘subjectivity’ and ‘objectivity’ and reveals the ways in which the artists were as enveloped in science as the men and women in the labs around them. In a harmony of scientific and artistic sensibilities, he shows, the Romantics tapped the marvels of nature and sounded the infinite benefits of science. It’s a song, if we can hear it, that can transform us today.”
“If, like me, you didn’t study much science after high school, this absorbing narrative will make you appreciate the gravity of your mistake…Reading it made we want to do college over, this time as a history of science major.”
“Richard Holmes—who is almost unfairly gifted both as a writer of living, luminous prose and as a tireless researcher—braids Herschel’s story together with a dozen others to create the most joyful, exciting book of the year.”
“It was a singular time, and this is a singular book.”
“The Age of Wonder is the long-awaited fermentation of the author’s knowledge of the Romantic poets and his lifelong fascination with science.”
“Holmes pursues his many-chambered nautilus of a tale with energy and great rigor, unearthing many lives and assembling remnant shards of biography, history, science, and literary criticism.”
“Rich in human foibles and thrills.”
“Captivating…An engrossing portrait of scientists as passionate adventurers, boldly laying claim to the intellectual leadership of society.”
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