What do you think?
Rate this book
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Patterns, Proteins and Peace: A Life in Science
*Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award*
The definitive biography of chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, the only British woman to win a Nobel prize in the sciences to date.
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910–1994) was passionate in her quest to understand the molecules of the living body. She won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964 for her work on penicillin and Vitamin B12, and her study of insulin made her a pioneer in protein crystallography. Fully engaged with the political and social currents of her time, Hodgkin experienced radical change in women's education, the globalisation of science, relationships between East and West, and international initiatives for peace.
Georgina Ferry's definitive biography of Britain's first female Nobel prizewinning scientist was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award. This revised and updated edition includes a new preface from the author.
The definitive biography of chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, the only British woman to win a Nobel prize in the sciences to date.
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910–1994) was passionate in her quest to understand the molecules of the living body. She won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964 for her work on penicillin and Vitamin B12, and her study of insulin made her a pioneer in protein crystallography. Fully engaged with the political and social currents of her time, Hodgkin experienced radical change in women's education, the globalisation of science, relationships between East and West, and international initiatives for peace.
Georgina Ferry's definitive biography of Britain's first female Nobel prizewinning scientist was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award. This revised and updated edition includes a new preface from the author.
560 pages, Paperback
Published January 7, 2020
7 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Georgina Ferry
19 books4 followersBorn in Hong Kong in 1955, Ferry had a peripatetic childhood as one of five children of an army officer. She went to Ellerslie School in Great Malvern from 1966–73, then to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford: she graduated in Experimental Psychology in 1976.
She worked briefly for a science publisher before joining New Scientist magazine as a section editor. Soon afterwards she began to present science programmes on BBC Radio 4.
She married David Long in 1981. They settled in Oxford, and sons Ed and Will were born in 1982 and 1985. Since then she has worked mostly as a freelance writer, editor and broadcaster.
She worked briefly for a science publisher before joining New Scientist magazine as a section editor. Soon afterwards she began to present science programmes on BBC Radio 4.
She married David Long in 1981. They settled in Oxford, and sons Ed and Will were born in 1982 and 1985. Since then she has worked mostly as a freelance writer, editor and broadcaster.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 16, 2020
I enjoyed this thoroughly researched and very detailed biography of the brilliant Dorothy Hodgkin. Ms. Georgina Ferry left no stone unturned. She covers family history, scientific discoveries and experimental design, political causes and thoughts, and domestic and child affairs all in its context. As a protein biochemist and crystallographer, I loved reading about the scientific minutiae and history of the field.
February 1, 2021
I loved this book, Dorothy was such an amazing person and researcher! I felt I was reading Harry Potter in real life :). She was British, traveled the world, went to Oxford, had diverse interests such as painting, archeology and of course, chemistry. Besides being a brilliant researcher she was a warm person who took care of everyone around her. She welcomed researchers from all over the world and made them feel home. I wish everybody pursuing an academic career would read this book. Besides all that, it is full of passion for science and social justice! It makes me believe you can be a great, ethical researcher who also cares about people and want to empower them as much as you want to pursue your own goals. It is just incredible and I highly recommend it for any science fan!
April 20, 2020
This was a book I asked for and was, very appropriately, bought for me by the friend by whose agency (and in whose company) I happened to meet Dorothy Hodgkin in the last years of her life. So that's me one up on Georgina Ferry ... but she races ahead from the start in this lovely thorough and immensely readable biography and includes one sentence which chimes perfectly with my own brief experience of encountering her subject. There were a few other scientific folk from around that time who either were or became somewhat problematic, but Ferry has the advantage here of a most congenial subject whose life was full and interesting, from start to finish, beyond the bounds of her scientific discoveries for which she won the Nobel Prize.
Some things really stood out for me: her feel for her subject, her manner, her way of encouraging others (I think once they had reached a certain level...) and her care for people as individuals. The book was often quite wryly amusing. I especially enjoyed the comments about an intelligent woman being at the mercy of being told how to breastfeed (in a quite unphysiological way), and the freedom with which she corresponded with scientific peers and mentors, including telling them of her breast abscesses and concern she might not be able to feed her child herself. It is a book about a woman scientist but perhaps not the sort of story we have come to expect.
There's a sad revelation towards the end of the book which made me wish I could give her a hug.
Some things really stood out for me: her feel for her subject, her manner, her way of encouraging others (I think once they had reached a certain level...) and her care for people as individuals. The book was often quite wryly amusing. I especially enjoyed the comments about an intelligent woman being at the mercy of being told how to breastfeed (in a quite unphysiological way), and the freedom with which she corresponded with scientific peers and mentors, including telling them of her breast abscesses and concern she might not be able to feed her child herself. It is a book about a woman scientist but perhaps not the sort of story we have come to expect.
There's a sad revelation towards the end of the book which made me wish I could give her a hug.
February 2, 2022
As a soon-to-be PhD student in life sciences in the Dorothy Hodgkin Building at Bristol, having recently spent 18 months in an Oxford lab on Dorothy Hodgkin Road this autobiography was essential reading to know the footsteps that I walk in. Dorothy is an inspiration to anyone pursuing a career in scientific research and instills hope in me that success can be achieved whilst still caring deeply about the wider world, having generosity for your fellow scientists, and leaving the lab when it's sunny to go to the pub instead. I was very glad to find this biography full of scientific detail as well as warm personal stories and it shows the realities of trying to balance total commitment to science with personal dreams of a family and the draw of other passions. This biography has the wonderful quality of making you feel that you know Dorothy personally as a friend or mentor and I'm sure I will return to it often when I need inspiration.
June 16, 2021
Fascinating life.
August 16, 2021
A brilliant account of the life of a wonderful woman. So interesting reading about the many contributions she made to her field. Everybody should know her name!
December 31, 2021
Read like a novel which is enviable. There was way more communism than I assumed there would be.
January 25, 2022
It is difficult to imagine that she was born before London was entirely electrified, yet made a living - and a name - by taking photographs of crystals with x-rays. A remarkable person.
January 8, 2023
An important scientist of rare perception and humility.
July 27, 2025
Fabulous
May 3, 2023
I love reading books about women who unknowingly changed the world. Dorthy didn’t set out to change anything. She loved science and she loved people. And that love drove her to accomplish amazing things. And in the process she touched and changed the lives of people both in and out of her immediate circle.
This book is more than just her personal biography. This book gives us a glimpsed of what it was like to be alive at this moment in time as well as what it was like to be a highly educated women in science at the time. She certainly had an out of the box family experience growing up. She was alive at the crossroads when people were challenging the idea of what proper relationships, family, and government should look like. She wasn’t afraid of testing these different thoughts out. She wasn’t afraid of living out of the box. This independent spirit is what made her free to achieve whatever she wanted. And what she achieved was amazing.
This book is more than just her personal biography. This book gives us a glimpsed of what it was like to be alive at this moment in time as well as what it was like to be a highly educated women in science at the time. She certainly had an out of the box family experience growing up. She was alive at the crossroads when people were challenging the idea of what proper relationships, family, and government should look like. She wasn’t afraid of testing these different thoughts out. She wasn’t afraid of living out of the box. This independent spirit is what made her free to achieve whatever she wanted. And what she achieved was amazing.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews