The intriguing story of how wireless was invented by Guglielmo Marconi - and how it amused Queen Victoria, saved the lives of the Titanic survivors, tracked down criminals and began the radio revolution. Wireless was the most fabulous invention of the 19th century: the public thought it was magic, the popular newspapers regarded it as miraculous, and the leading scientists of the day (in Europe and America) could not understand how it worked. In 1897, when the first wireless station was established by Marconi in a few rooms of the Royal Needles Hotel on the Isle of Wight, nobody knew how far these invisible waves could travel through the 'ether', carrying Morse Coded messages decipherable at a receiving station. (The definitive answer was not discovered till the 1920s, by which time radio had become a sophisticated industry filling the airwaves with a cacaphony of sounds - most of it American.) Marconi himself was the son of an Italian father and an Irish mother (from the Jameson whiskey family); he grew up in Italy and was fluent in Italian and English, but it was in England that his invention first caught on. Marconi was in his early twenties at the time (he died in 1937). With the 'new telegraphy' came the real prospect of replacing the network of telegraphic cables that criss-crossed land and sea at colossal expense. Initially it was the great ships that benefited from the new invention - including the Titanic, whose survivors owed their lives to the wireless.

"Irresistible…an engaging page-turner, zipping with excitement, drama and intrigue"
JENNIFER NIVEN, author of 'The Ice Master'

On 13 February 1806 a ship left Boston bound for the Caribbean island of Martinique, with a cargo that few imagined would survive the month-long journey. Packed in the hold were large chunks of ice from a frozen Massachusetts lake. This was the first venture of a young Bostonian, Frederic Tudor, who imagined he could make a fortune selling ice to tropical countries.

Ridiculed from the outset, Tudor endured years of hardship before he was to fulfil his youthful dream. Over thirty years he extended the 'frozen water trade' to Cuba, New Orleans, New York and London, and finally – to the astonishment and delight of the British Raj – to Calcutta, when in 1833 more than 100 tons of ice survived a four month voyage of 16,000 miles with two crossings of the Equator.

Thanks to his astonishing enterprise, iced drinks, chilled beer and home-made ice cream became an essential part of life for millions of people around the world, long before artificial refrigeration became available – after which the trade melted away, leaving little to show that it had ever existed.

"If you are looking for a classic example of the most particularly American virtue – commercial ingenuity boosted by extraordinary perseverance – then Frederic Tudor is your paradigm"
GEOFFREY MOORHOUSE, 'Guardian'

"A book for anyone who loves tales of seafaring history and biography all rolled into one"
DAVID HAYS, co-author of 'My Old Man and the Sea'

In this vivid, sweeping history of the industrial revolution, Gavin Weightman shows how, in less than one hundred and fifty years, an unlikely band of scientists, spies, entrepreneurs, and political refugees took a world made of wood, powered by animals, wind, and water, and made it into something entirely new, forged of steel and iron, and powered by steam and fossil fuels. Weightman weaves together the dramatic stories of giants such as Edison, Watt, Wedgwood, and Daimler, with lesser-known or entirely forgotten characters, including a group of Japanese samurai who risked their lives to learn the secrets of the West, and John Iron Mad Wilkinson, who didn't let war between England and France stop him from plumbing Paris. Distilling complex technical achievements, outlandish figures, and daring adventures into an accessible narrative that spans the globe as industrialism spreads, The Industrial Revolutionaries is a remarkable work of original, engaging history.

Smallpox was the scourge of the eighteenth century: it showed no mercy, almost wiping out whole societies. Young and old, poor and royalty were equally at risk - unless they had survived a previous attack. Daniel Sutton, a young surgeon from Suffolk, used this knowledge to pioneer a simple and effective inoculation method to counter the disease. His technique paved the way for Edward Jenner's discovery of vaccination - but, while Jenner is revered, Sutton has been vilified for not widely revealing his methods until later in life. Gavin Weightman reclaims Sutton's importance, showing how the clinician's practical and observational discoveries advanced understanding of the nature of disease. Weightman explores Sutton's personal and professional development, and the wider world of eighteenth-century health in which he practised inoculation. Sutton's brilliant and exacting mind had a significant impact on medicine - the effects of which can still be seen today.

In 1885 the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette published an account of a girl of thirteen being sold by her mother to a brothel, where her virginity would be highly prized. The editor was W T Stead, and his audacious scoop was telegraphed around the world. What became know as the story of the GBP5 virgin - the price that Stead claimed had been paid for the girl - was a sensation, one of the greatest scandals of the Victorian era. But was the story a 'put up job' as the playwright George Bernard Shaw judged it? With meticulous detective work Gavin Weightman has pieced together the true story of how the W T Stead, hero of the moral purity campaigners, fell victim to his own salacious imagination and wound up in the dock at the Old Bailey. At the heart of the story is an innocent cockney girl who later found immortality as the model for Eliza Doolittle in Shaw's most popular play, Pygmalion (My Fair Lady).

In the tradition of Cod, the story of the rise and fall of the natural ice industry in nineteenth-century North America Success of Hardcover -- The hardcover edition of The Frozen-Water Trade, published in January 2003, was selected as a Barnes and Nobles Discover New Writers and a Booksense 76 pick. New York Times bestselling author Linda Greenlaw called it a "thrilling work of history that kept me riveted, " and David Hays (My Old Man and the Sea) wrote "it is a book for anyone who loves tales of seafaring, history, and biography - all in one." Review attention was tremendous: "a funny, rollicking human adventure" (Publishers Weekly), "fascinating" (Kirkus), more reviews TK (National Geographic Advenure). Bestselling Comparisons -- This kind of popular, up-market historical/adventure/quirky narrative non-fiction is in great demand today. First Book of its Kind - There has never before been a book for a mass audience about the frozen-water trade. It history has literally melted into obscurity; and, in the absence of any notable monuments to recall it, the whole of the extraordinary saga survives only in the records left in libraries and museums. The Frozen-Water Trade sets the record straight. Compelling Narrative - The author tells the story of the frozen-water trade through the remarkable life of Frederick Tudor, the wealthy Boston "Ice King" who had a crucial role in establishing this booming industry. His Tudor Ice Company continued to trade profitably until the last decade of the nineteenth century. Great American Story - The demand for, and the supply of, natural ice in nineteenth-century America touches on many aspects of the nation's food, industry, medicine, and domestic life.And the export trade illustrates the manner in which what could be called "the American way of life" had a profound and lasting influence on the rest of the world. In the nineteenth century, ice became, in the popular imagination, something quintessentially American. What were sometimes called "Crystal blocks of Yankee coldness" were, for a time, almost as internationally renowned as Coca Cola! Great New England Story - The center of "production" of frozen water was along the eastern seabord of New England, and this book has particular appeal to readers in Maine, Massachusetts, and other New England states. It is worth mentioning, too, that many stories set in that region of the U.S. have found a large audience (for example, The Perfect Storm or the novels of John Irving). Fascinating Subject - Ice is now so ubiquitous that we take for granted the myriad ways in which we use it on a daily basis. The Frozen-Water Trade offers fascinating descriptions of historical uses of ice - for example, the birth of ice cream and the varieties of ice houses in the stately homes of New England. On February 13, 1806, the brig Favorite left Boston harbor bound for the Caribbean island of Martinique, with a cargo that few imagined would survive the monthlong voyage. Packed in hay in the hold were large chunks of ice cut from a frozen Massachusetts lake. This was the first venture of a young Boston entrepreneur, Frederic Tudor, who believed he could make a fortune selling ice to people in the tropics. Ridiculed from the outset by fellow merchants, Tudor endured years of hardship before he was to fulfill his dream. Over thirty years, he and his rivals extended the "frozen-water trade" to Cuba, Charleston,New Orleans, New York, London, and finally to Calcutta, when in 1833 more than one hundred tons of ice survived a four-month journey of 16,000 miles with two crossings of the equator. For the next fifty years, Calcutta, Bomba, and Madras eagerly awaited their regular supplies of New England ice. Tudor not only made a fortune, he founded a huge industry that employed thousands of men and horses to "harvest" millions of tons of ice each winter. Thanks to his astonishing enterprise, iced drinks, chilled beer, and homemade ice cream became an essential part of our way of life, and cooled the brows of American city dwellers and colonial communities throughout the world long before artifical refrigeration became available - after which the frozen-water trade melted away, leaving little to show that it had ever existed. In this fascinating book, Gavin Weightman reveals the forgotten story of America's vast natural ice trade, which revolutionized domestic life for millions of people.

The extraordinary and often bizarre story of an amateur inventor and how his magic box changed the world. The world at the turn of the twentieth century was in the throes of Marconi-mania-brought on by an incredible invention that no one could quite explain, and by a dapper and eccentric figure (who would one day win the newly minted Nobel Prize) at the center of it all. At a time when the telephone, telegraph, and electricity made the whole world wonder just what science would think of next, the startling answer had come in 1896 in the form of two mysterious wooden boxes containing a device Marconi had rigged up to transmit messages through the ether. It was the birth of the radio, and no scientist in Europe or America, not even Marconi himself, could at first explain how it worked...it just did.Here is a rich portrait of the man and his era-a captivating tale of British blowhards, American con artists, and Marconi himself-a character par excellence, who eventually winds up a virtual prisoner of his worldwide fame and fortune.