EDISON

In 1931, when Thomas Edison was at the end of his life, it was suggested to President Hoover that the entire electrical system of the United States should be shut off for one minute as a mark of respect for the man who mobilised the power of electricity. Fortunately Hoover realised that the gesture would immobilise the nation and quite possibly kill a lot of people. Even turning the lights out was unthinkable. Since his birth in 1847 Edison's discoveries had changed everything. This big and authoritative biography takes the unusual step of recounting Edison's life in reverse. It is at the end of the book that we finally learn of the interest in science and discovery that was awakened in the young Thomas, or Alva as he was known then, by his mother's home schooling, and which extraordinarily was not stifled by his deafness at the age of 12. Edison left home to become a telegraph boy in the southern states at the time of the Civil War, when faster communications were being developed. He developed a method of receiving Morse code on cylinder tape and managed to patent the invention, though he also had to suffer setbacks, jealousies and obstructive bureaucracy. By this time he was running his own business. In 1871 he married his first wife Mary, aged 16, who died aged 28 leaving Edison with three children. His second wife Mina bore three more children, neglecting the offspring of his first marriage, whose chaotic lives caused endless anxiety to their troubled father. Edison's laboratory at Menlo Park was the scene of thousands of experiments that led to the invention of the phonograph, which he was still perfecting decades later, early forms of X-ray which were used by surgeons to locate embedded bullets, and invention of the storage battery. The goal of creating a mass-market electric light was a long time in development in the 1880s but finally assured his place in history. Altogether Edison had over 1000 patents to his name. 783pp, black and white reproductions. Remainder mark.