Dorothy Hodgkin, A Life

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994) was renowned for her medically-important work on penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin. Fully engaged with the political and social currents of her time, she participated in some of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century: women’s education; the globalisation of science; the rise and fall of communism; and international peace movements. A wife, mother and grandmother, she cared deeply about the wellbeing of individuals in all cultures.

Georgina Ferry’s biography of the only British female scientist to receive the Nobel Prize – Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life – was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award. Bloomsbury Reader 2014 edition is reissued with a new preface.

“This life of Hodgkin is in the top rank of scientific biographies, hooking the reader from the first page and keeping you absorbed to the end.” Sunday Times

“Ferry has brilliantly captured the flavour of a century of science.” New Scientist

“Georgina Ferry paints a vivid portrait of a woman passionately concerned to resolve the enigmas of chemical structures… One is left with a memorable picture of a gentle woman of exceptional talent. “A Life” indeed.” The Times

“Georgina Ferry gives us a genuinely illuminating account of Hodgkin’s life, neatly balancing the personal with the scientific… This agreeable and well-written biography… deserves great success.” Times Literary Supplement

October 2014 marks the 50th Anniversary of Dorothy Hodgkin's Nobel Prize Nomination. There will be considerable press to mark this as well as an event at Somerville College, Oxford