The American Career of Jane Marcet's Conversations on Chemistry, 1806-1853

Abstract

Jane Haldimand Marcet's Conversations on Chemistry has traditionally claimed historical attention for its effects on the young bookbinder Michael Faraday, who was converted to a life of science while binding and reading it. Marcet "inspired Faraday with a love of science and blazed for him that road in chemical and physical experimentation which led to such marvelous results," in H.J. Mozans's romantic account. Or, as Eva Armstrong put it, Marcet led Faraday to "dedicate himself to a science in which his name became immortal."1