Marie Curie: A Life ANNOTATION
A brilliant, often surprising portrait--based on new information--that is sure to be the definitive work on one of history's greatest women. Quinn shows in this richly textured work, a well-rounded, in-depth view of Curie as a scientist, a woman, a wife and a lover. 16 pages of photos; notes; index.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
In this richly textured new biography, Susan Quinn presents us with a far more complicated picture of the woman we thought we knew. Drawing on family documents, Quinn sheds new light on the tragic losses and patriotic passion that infused Marie Sklodowska Curie's early years in Poland. And through access to Marie Curie's journal, closed to researchers until 1990, we hear in her own words of the intimacy and joy of her marriage to Pierre Curie and the depth of her despair at his premature death. The image of Marie Curie as the grieving widow, attired always in black, is familiar to many of us. Much less well known is the affair with a married colleague that helped her recover from her loss. The testimonials of friends, hitherto unavailable, lend this love story a sometimes painful immediacy. Marie Curie's public triumphs are well known: she was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize and one of the few people, to date, to receive a second. Unknown or barely known are the defeats she suffered: her rejection by the French Academy and her public humiliation at the hands of the French press over her love affair. As a scientist, Marie Curie has always been associated with the discovery of radium and polonium. But in fact more important than her work in isolating new elements was her idea that radioactivity was "an atomic process." Susan Quinn's biography provides a closer look at Marie Curie's work, and at the discoveries that led up to it and flowed from it. We come away understanding that Marie Curie was important but not singular: one of a small group of brilliant scientists whose combined efforts brought us to our current understanding of the material universe.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Quinn (A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney) presents here a carefully researched, well-rounded study of Curie (1867-1934), the physicist credited with isolating radium. Born Marie Sklodowska in Poland, she left her home to study in Paris, where she met and married physics professor Pierre Curie. Agreeing with earlier accounts, Quinn depicts their marriage as a devoted partnership. The Curies together made an investigation of radioactivity, for which they shared the 1903 Nobel Prize for physics. But Quinn breaks ground in her detailed description, drawn from newly available papers, of Marie's life after Pierre's accidental death in 1906. At first so grief-stricken she neglected her two daughters, Irene and Eva, Marie later had a love affair with French scientist Paul Langevin. Because Langevin was married, Marie was vilified by the French press and was almost denied the 1911 Nobel Prize for chemistry.
Library Journal
This new biography of Marie Curie by the author of A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney (LJ 10/15/87) includes information drawn from previously unavailable letters that Curie wrote to Pierre, her husband, after his accidental death. It also draws on correspondence between Curie and Paul Langevin, with whom she had an affair several years after becoming a widow. The affair, sensationalized in the French press, nearly caused the revocation of her second Nobel Prize. Only the arrival of World War I and Curie's valiant efforts to bring X-ray technology to French army hospitals and even to the front lines succeeded in removing the tainted image from the French public's memory. This is a rigorously researched book with extensive notes and bibliography. It provides much more detailed and balanced coverage of Curie's life than has previously been available. For biography and science collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/94.] --Hilary D. Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Livermore, Cal.
Booknews
Synthesizes the current understanding of the occurrence, structure, chemistry, genetics, assembly, function, and application potential of the monomolecular arrays of protein or glycoprotein subunits now known to be one of the most common surface structures found in prokaryotic organisms. Each of the eight chapters is self-contained to provide a focused treatment of such aspects as chemical composition and biosynthesis, the analysis of proteins and genes, vaccine development based on the technology of the layers, and molecular nanotechnology and biomimetics. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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