Queen Of Science : Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville

Born in Redburgh in 1780, Mary Fairfax was the daughter of one of Nelson's captains and in common with most girls of her time and station, she was given the kind of education which prized gentility over ability.

Nevertheless, she taught herself algebra in secret, and made her reputation in celestial mechanics by predicting the presence of the planet Neptune, before it was discovered.

As she was equally interested in art, literature and nature, the author's memoirs give a picture of her life and times from childhood in Burntisland to international recognition and retirement in Sorrento.

She tells of her friendship with Maria Edgeworth and her encounters with Scott and Fenimore Cooper.

She remebers high society in London and Paris, Charles Babbage and his calculating engine, the Risorgimento in Italy and the eruption of Vesuvius.

Selected by her daughter and first published in 1873, these are the memoirs of a remarkable woman who gave her name to Oxford's Somerville College and became one of the most gifted mathematicians and scientists of the 19th century.