Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life & Inventive Mind Of Alexander Graham Bell

Impeccably researched, and written with Charlotte Gray's unerring eye for personal and historical detail, Reluctant Genius tells the story of a man very different from his public image. Most of us think of Alexander Graham Bell as a white-bearded sage, but the young A lec Bell was a passionate and wild-eyed genius, a man given to fits of brilliance and melancholy. His technologies for photophones, tetrahedrals, flying machines and hydrodomes laid the groundwork for future achievement. And he adored his wife, Mabel, a beautiful, deaf young woman from a blueblood Boston family.

Gray goes where no other writer has gone, delving deeply into Bell's personality and into his intense relationship with Mabel, whose background and temperament were a startling contrast to his own. Reluctant Genius takes us on an intimate journey into the golden age of invention and the vibrant life of a man whose work shaped our world.

CHARLOTE GRAY is one of our pre-eminent biographers. Her #1 bestseller, Flint & Feather, won the 2002 UBC Medal for Canadian Biography and the Drummer Generals Award. She is also the author of the multi-award-winning books Sisters in the Wilderness and Mrs. King. A graduate of Oxford University and a recipient of the Pierre Berton Award from Canadas National History Society, Charlotte Gray lives in Ottawa. Visit her online at ...