Davy on Davy

Humphrey Davy was that strange amalgam - a Romantic Scientist. He was fond of composing verses, sketching, making fireworks, fishing and collecting minerals. This memoir, written by his son, brings both man and scientist to life, set against a backdrop of political and cultural revolution.

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"Holmes's Lives" is a series of classic English biographies, edited and introduced by Richard Holmes. In this series, Richard Holmes sets out to recover the great forgotten tradition of English biography writing, and reaffirms the enduring excitement of classic non-fiction. Humphrey Davy was that strange amalgam - a Romantic Scientist. He was fond of composing verses, sketching, making fireworks, fishing, shooting and collecting minerals. While still a youth, Davy had plans for a volume of poems, but when he began the serious study of science in 1797, these visions "fled before the voice of truth". Amongst many other achievements he went on to discover several chemical elements (including sodium and potassium) and compounds, he invented the miner's safety lamp, found the Zoological Society and ran the Royal Society, becoming in the process one of the greatest exponents of the scientific method. This memoir, written by his son, vividly brings both man and scientist to life, set against a backdrop of political and cultural revolution.