Category Books

Signor Marconi's Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the 19th Century and the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution » (New Edition)

Book cover image of Signor Marconi's Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the 19th Century and the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution by Gavin Weightman

Authors: Gavin Weightman
ISBN-13: 9780306813788, ISBN-10: 0306813785
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Date Published: September 2004
Edition: New Edition

Author Biography: Gavin Weightman

Gavin Weightman is a documentary filmmaker, a journalist, and the author of The Frozen-Water Trade, a Book Sense 76 selection. He lives in London.

Book Synopsis

The extraordinary and often bizarre story of an amateur inventor and how his "magic box" changed the world

Providence Journal

Weightman has given us a lively biography of a remarkable man and is fascinating era of ingenious scientific discoveries...One of the world's great stories.

	List of Illustrations	ix
	Acknowledgements	xiii
	Introduction	xv
	Map: Marconi's Early Wireless Telegraph Stations	xviii
1	In Darkest London	1
2	Silkworms and Whiskey	10
3	Sparks in the Attic	16
4	In the Heart of the Empire	21
5	Dancing on the Ether	25
6	Beside the Seaside	35
7	Texting Queen Victoria	39
8	An American Investigates	44
9	The Romance of Morse Code	49
10	A New York Welcome	58
11	Atlantic Romance	66
12	Adventure at Mullion Cove	71
13	An American Forecast	82
14	Kite-Flying in Newfoundland	88
15	The Spirits of the Ether	93
16	Fishing in the Ether	100
17	The End of the Affair	108
18	Farewell the Pigeon Post	115
19	The Power of Darkness	121
20	The Hermit of Paignton	128
21	The King's Appendix	132
22	The Thundering Professor	142
23	A Real Colonel Sellers	151
24	Defeat in the Yellow Sea	161
25	A Wireless Rat	167
26	Dazzling the Millions	172
27	'Marky' and his Motor	178
28	On the American Frontier	186
29	Marconi gets Married	191
30	Wireless at War	198
31	America's Whispering Gallery	202
32	A Voice on the Air	206
33	The Bells of Budapest	211
34	Wireless to the Rescue	219
35	Dynamite for Marconi	225
36	Le Match Dew-Crippen	230
37	A Marriage on the Rocks	236
38	Ice and the Ether	242
39	'It's a CQD, Old Man'	247
40	After the Titanic	253
41	The Crash	260
42	The Suspect Italian	268
43	Eclipse of Marconi on the Eiffel Tower	277
44	In Bed with Mussolini	281
	Epilogue	289
	Index	293