First published 2019
Edmund Morris presents the first major Edison biography in over two decades, drawing from seven years of research through five million pages of original documents at Edison's West Orange laboratory. The Pulitzer Prize winner moves past the familiar story of the incandescent lamp to reveal Edison's full scope as philosopher, chemist, botanist, and defense adviser. Morris explores Edison's 1,093 patents alongside unlicensed inventions like the X-ray fluoroscope that he gave freely to medicine. The biography traces Edison's fifty-year obsession with recording technology and his advances in synchronizing movies with sound. Morris dismantles conspiracy theories about Edison's relationship with Nikola Tesla, showing instead their mutual respect and wariness. Beyond the inventor, Morris portrays the private man: a near-deaf genius who had not heard birdsong since age twelve, an autocratic yet beloved husband to two wives, and often neglectful father to six children. The result shows Edison not as sentimental hero but as an unstoppable creative force.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, american, non-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: biography, historical-figure
Setting: West Orange
Period: 19th-century, 20th-century
800 pages · Hardcover · Random House