Marie Curie: A Life (Radcliffe Biography Series) [Paperback]

Susan Quinn (Author)

Book Description

Series: Radcliffe Biography Series | Publication Date: April 10, 1996

One hundred years ago, Marie Curie discovered radioactivity, for which she won the Nobel Prize in physics. In 1911 she won an unprecedented second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for isolating new radioactive elements. Despite these achievements, or perhaps because of her fame, she has remained a saintly, unapproachable genius. From family documents and a private journal only recently made available, Susan Quinn at last tells the full human story. From the stubborn sixteen-year-old studying science at night while working as a governess, to her romance and scientific partnership with Pierre Curie—an extraordinary marriage of equals—we feel her defeats as well as her successes: her rejection by the French Academy, her unbearable grief at Pierre’s untimely and gruesome death, and her retreat into a love affair with a married fellow scientist, causing a scandal which almost cost her the second Nobel Prize. In Susan Quinn’s fully dimensional portrait, we come at last to know this complicated, passionate, brilliant woman.

Editorial Reviews

From 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. Photos not seen by PW. BOMC, History Book Club and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From 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.
-?Hilary D. Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Livermore, Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (April 10, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201887940
• ISBN-13: 978-0201887945
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #559,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine, detailed portrait of a scientist and a woman., September 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Marie Curie: A Life (Radcliffe Biography Series) (Paperback)

As a woman scientist myself, and a long time admirer of the work of the Curies, I was struck by how much this book allows us to see beyond the legend, to the heart of Marie Curie. She emerges as a fascinating, brilliant individual of great depth, and a woman who endured great losses and emotional trials. Her character, emotional depth and her ability to follow her own moral code are what struck me most deeply. While her work has been greatly appreciated in the latter half of the 20th Century, the neglect and condemnation heaped on her in her day is not well known. It makes her accomplishments all the more remarkable and due our respect. This very fine biography should be on every scientists' bookshelf.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As if I was walking in her shoes, March 4, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Marie Curie: A Life (Radcliffe Biography Series) (Paperback)

Growing up in Poland, being interested in science and scientists and loving biographies "made me" reach for Susan Quinn book, Marie Curie: A life. A life,...what an accurate title! The book is about one of the scientists of its (and even current) times, but it is titled modestly, "...:A life". This means, Susan Quinn introduced this intriguing woman as a normal, day to day character. Such "normalcy" did not take away my admiration and inspiration in my own professional pursuits. She, the author, simply presented an extra-ordinary woman in a very ordinary way, just as if she, Maria Sklodowska-Curie, were your or mine neighboor.

The language of the biography is percise but also nostalgic. Susan Quinn proved to be excellent researcher and "mood creator". She was able to write as if she was walking in Sklodowska-Curie shoes. She captured non-essential detail that took a reader right in the middle of the action. The details she used were accurate and true. It brought a Polish reader back to Warsaw. There, the streets were just as she described them, the smell and noise and politics of XIX and XX c Poland were so accuratly painted that as I continued reading it I could no longer remember I was in USA. I thought I were at Nowolipki street or Saxon Garden. Memories of my country history and history of scientific world were rekindled in my heart.

This is a very rich book. It will bring memories or create some for those who are not familiar with scientific revolution of Europe in late XIXc and early XXc. It is a book about heroism, loyalty, determination, passion, love and friendship. It is also a book about rejection in professional world. But most of all, this book is about victory of one extraordinary woman. This is the only woman ever who received two Nobel Prizes. And she happened to come from a country that was constantly occupied by its oppresors, from Poland. Both the author and the heroin did a fantastic job.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars no title, November 27, 2005

By 

C. L Wilson (Elmhurst, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marie Curie: A Life (Radcliffe Biography Series) (Paperback)

I had mixed emotions on this book and so did many of the numerous reviews I read. While trying to celebrate Marie Curie in light of our feminist times - a motivating factor in the book's writing, I'm sure - the author spends far too little time on the actual physics of Curie's accomplishments and instead dwells on her love affair with a married collegue, on household matters, trivial matters of her everyday life that may make her seem more approachable to the book's readers, but do nothing to clarify her position in historical physics or her winning, jointly, the Nobel Prize, admittedly then in its infancy. I felt Curie to be an extremely passionate woman, both in her work and in her bed. But I wanted much more detail of the physics than was given.