Michael Faraday was an anomaly, even in his own time.  He was an autodidact who never really got to grips with mathematics, and a devout Sandemanian Christian, yet he made significant discoveries in physics and chemistry and  disbelieved in creationism.  He was a prolific experimental scientist who declined to patent his discoveries, allowing others to reap the financial and technological benefits.  He was also a self-taught artist and a talented teacher-popularizer.

This biography is written by a non-scientist, an art historian who has chosen to emphasise the extra-laboratory side of Faraday, his religion, psychology and  interpersonal  and professional relationships.   There are plenty of non-technical descriptions of him engaged in scientific work, in pursuance of the author's partial attempt to demonstrate and analyze his genius.

496pp paperback; b/w illus; appendixes; index; references