The first volume of his biography of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Coleridge: Early Visions, was published in 1989 and won the Whitbread Book of the Year award. His first book, Shelley:The Pursuit, was published in 1974 and won a Somerset Maugham Award. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.īiographer Richard Holmes was born in London, England on 5 November 1945 and educated at Downside School and Churchill College, Cambridge. From telescopic sight to miner's lamp, and from the first balloon flight to African exploration, it tells the stories of great innovations, and the inspired individuals behind them. These are just a few of the lives covered in this remarkable work in which Holmes charts the many voyages of discovery - astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical - that made up this `age of wonder'. Banks goes on to introduce us to William Herschel, whose groundbreaking dedication to the stars forever changed the public conception of the solar system, and Humphry Davy, whose creation of the Safety Lamp went on to save thousands of lives.
The young botanist had set sail in search of new worlds - inspired by the Romantic revolution of science that was sweeping through Britain. The book opens with Joseph Banks stepping onto a Tahitian beach in 1796, hoping to discover Paradise. It has been inspired by the scientific ferment that swept through Britain at the end of the eighteenth century, which Holmes now radically redefines as 'the revolution of Romantic Science'. 'The Age of Wonder' is Richard Holmes's first major work of biography in over a decade.
Richard Holmes, prize-winning biographer of Coleridge and Shelley, explores the scientific ferment that swept across Britain at the end of 18th century in this ground-breaking new biography. Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. Winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books.
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