Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention

Charlotte Gray

Aug 2011 · Sold by Skyhorse

About this eBook

The popular image of Alexander Graham Bell is that of an elderly American patriarch, memorable only for his paunch, his Santa Claus beard, and the invention of the telephone. In this magisterial reassessment based on thorough new research, acclaimed biographer Charlotte Gray reveals Bell’s wide-ranging passion for invention and delves into the private life that supported his genius. The child of a speech therapist and a deaf mother, and possessed of superbly acute hearing, Bell developed an early interest in sound. His understanding of how sound waves might relate to electrical waves enabled him to invent the “talking telegraph” be- fore his rivals, even as he undertook a tempestuous courtship of the woman who would become his wife and mainstay.

In an intensely competitive age, Bell seemed to shun fame and fortune. Yet many of his innovations—electric heating, using light to transmit sound, electronic mail, composting toilets, the artificial lung—were far ahead of their time. His pioneering ideas about sound, flight, genetics, and even the engineering of complex structures such as stadium roofs still resonate today. This is an essential portrait of an American giant whose innovations revolutionized the modern world.

Ratings and reviews

This is a well written book and extremely interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

About the author

Editor, journalist, and broadcaster Charlotte Gray was born in Sheffield, U.K. on January 3, 1948. She earned her M.A. from Oxford University and her honorary doctorate from Mount St. Vincent University in Nova Scotia. She moved to Canada in 1979. Gray is a contributing editor to Saturday Night Magazine, and a frequent commentator on the CBC and CTV. She is a regular contributor to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Chatelaine, and Elm Street magazine. Her book Mrs. King: The Life & Times of Isabel Mackenzie King won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and Canadian Authors' /Birks Foundation Award for Biography. Another of her books, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Trail won the Canadian Booksellers Award for Non-fiction.