Thomas Harriot: An Elizabethan Man of Science Author: Robert Fox Publisher: Ashgate ISBN: 978-0754600787 Price: £65 (Hb), 330pp
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On 26 July 1609, Thomas Harriot became the first person to make a drawing of an astronomical body with a telescope – over three months before Galileo. Harriot remained an obscure figure in scientific history for well over 200 years after his death in 1621 and it was not until the late twentieth century that he became of international scholarly recognition and study.

The Harriot Lectures, delivered since the 1960s at Oxford and Durham Universities, now testify to that recognition and the ten lectures delivered between 1990 and 1999 are presented in essay form in this volume. Each of the ten lecturers is an acknowledged authority in his or her field and reflects the several facets of Harriot’s own scientific and scholarly interests, including case studies in scientific instrumentation, American exploration, mathematics, atomism and religion. James Bennett, John Roche, Hilary Gatti and John North in particular deal with the central role which astronomical and physical thinking played in Harriot’s career, including his observational work, Copernican and Keplerian ideas, his ideas on the nature of matter (atoms) and of course, his early telescopic observations.

I was especially fascinated by Hugh Trevor Roper’s chapter (which I vividly recall hearing delivered as a lecture in 1992) on Harriot’s final illness, medical condition and correspondence with his physician, Sir Theodore Mayerne. This volume is a work of the highest scholarly standard, yet each of the essays is beautifully written and easily accessible to the non-specialist. It brings to life not only Harriot himself, but also the world in which he lived.

Allan Chapman