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Can anyone recommend a good Edison biography? I just got Paul Israel's out of the library but I haven't started it yet.

Thanks!

Israel's book is very good. I also like A Streak of Luck by Robert Conot.

George P.

It's been quite a while since I've read any of Edison's biographies, so my remembrances here are a little hazy. But I think that Israel's book is probably the most dispassionate of the lot that I've read, which also includes Baldwin's and Conot's. Meaning, his book seems to be injected with the least amount of opinion and speculation and the most fact, but that also makes it rather a dry "read". Israel has long been involved with the "Edison Papers Project" which is an ongoing effort to publish an exhaustive study of all the documents now housed at the Edison National Historic Park, so he probably had some of the best access to accurate historical information when he wrote his tome. Most biographers can't help but inject some bias or at least bring a point of view to their writings, so it's useful to read several biographies written by different authors to get a better overall picture of the subject's life and accomplishments. That said, I remember liking "Edison, His Life and Inventions" by Dyer, Martin, and Meadowcroft. This two-volume set was one of the first Edison biographies and was written by his contemporaries, friends, and co-workers. As such, it is very complimentary toward Edison, but it presents some unique perspective on his work because the authors were present during some of these efforts and perhaps contributed to some of the work. Francis Jehl's "Menlo Park Reminiscences" (a three-volume set) is also very good for the special insights that it brings due to Jehl's having known and worked personally with Edison. Edison lived an almost story-book life (as depicted in the two films made about him) and there's a lot of interesting stuff to learn about him from his childhood to his work right up to his last days. So, my recommendation is to read more than one biography to get a more complete picture of this fascinating and complex icon of American technology.

Edison was an incredibly complex personality and one who left a treasure trove of original materials: letters, notebooks, memos, and so forth written both by himself and by those that knew him . This presents any biographer with both a bonanza an and almost insurmountable problem: how on earth do you get a handle on it? This sort of situation tends to confuse biographers. A similar situation exists in terms of the composer Sir Edward Elgar . His biographers have tended to go for the "tortured depressive who faced the world with a Colonel Blimp facade" tack. Possibly true but it ignores the rest of his witty joyful personality entirely .
Edison has has fallen victim to the same problem, so you really have to read several biographies to get a flavour of the man. I think of them all Conot's book comes closest to the target. although he tends to play up the cigar-smoking and at times loutish aspect of ol' TAE. He also makes his wife Mina sound like Billie Burke playing Glinda the Good Witch. But you must read Neil Baldwin's Edison: Inventing the Century to balance the scales. Baldwin makes Edison sound too benign and spiritual, but he does give Mina her due, And there is one chapter that is a must read for anyone wanting to understand both Edison and his family. It it Baldwin quotes an extraordinary document written in the form of a play by Edison's son Charles. It's just dinner at the Edison's culminating in the mad scramble to get to Proctor's Vaudeville house on time and it rings absolutely and affectionately true to each person. It's also an utterly amazing piece of writing by a fifteen year old; it's an amazing piece of writing by anybody! Edison pere wasn't the only bright one in that household!
Jim

For many years the Matthew Josephson biography was the standard- it's far from fawning but it does have a reverential tone- Edison emerges as the Grand Old Man.

I thought Conot was pretty good- it's something of a debunking version of the Josephson- Edison is presented as something of a coarse lout with Mina Edison and Francis Miller transforming him into a colorful eccentric. Illustration: it is made pretty clear that throughout most of his life he was familiarly called "Al" Edison...but that wasn't dignified enough for posterity, so "Tom" entered the history books. When the Conot book came out the phonograph collecting community roasted it unmercifully.

Of course these days we've got Edison and his evil empire murdering his rivals.

I am currently about halfway through "Edison:The man who made the future" by Ronald W.Clark, ISBN 0 354 04093 6.

We have reached the early 1880's, and the great man is busily developing his electrical distribution system.

As this is the first Edison biography I have read, I have as yet no standard of comparison, but it is certainly an entertaining tale.