The Life of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. Ll.d., Volume 2 (of 2)

This second volume of John Ayrton Paris's 1829 biography captures Sir Humphry Davy at the height of his powers: the celebrated chemist who would become President of the Royal Society, inventor of the miner's safety lamp, discoverer of iodine, and mentor to the greatest experimental physicist who ever lived. The narrative opens with one of science history's most consequential moments: Davy takes a young bookbinder named Michael Faraday under his wing, recognizing a genius in the unlikeliest of apprentices. It then follows Davy as he secures extraordinary permission from Napoleon himself to travel through France during wartime, a journey that reads less like a Victorian biography and more like an adventure across a Europe still remaking itself after revolution. Paris gives us Davy among the leading chemists of Paris and Italy, conducting experiments on foreign soil, observing Vesuvius in eruption, and displaying a character both brilliant and strange (his famous indifference to the Louvre's masterpieces reveals as much about his singular mind as any scientific triumph). For readers drawn to the human stories behind great discoveries, this is a portrait of scientific fame, friendship, and the age when chemistry was still young enough that one person could reshape it.