91av

PEEPING behind the lace curtains of late Georgian and early Victorian scientific gentility, Allan Chapman provides us with a vivid and engaging insight into the life and legacy of Mary Somerville. This well-bred daughter of a Scottish admiral led a great broadening of women’s access to literary and scientific education by clearly showing the world what women were capable of doing. Somerville (1780 – 1872) was a mathematician at heart, but she also had a sophisticated grasp of physical sciences. She excelled as a synthesiser and interpreter, her most famous books being On the Mechanism of the Heavens, On the…