His invention so fertile : a life of Christopher Wren

This portrait of Christopher Wren (1632-1723), the great British architect, aims to show us the man behind the legend.

Wren was a founder of the Royal Society, he mapped the moon and the stars, investigated the problem of longitude and the rings of Saturn, and carried out groundbreaking experiments into the circulation of the blood.

His observations on comets, meteorology and muscular action made vital contributions to the developing ideas of Newton, Halley and Boyle.

This book presents a complete picture of this genius: the Surveyor of the King's Works, running the nation's biggest architectural office and wrestling with corruption and interference; the pioneering anatomist; the mathematician, devising new navigational instruments and lecturing on planetary motion.

But this biography also shows us the man behind the legend: Wren was married and widowed twice; he fathered a mentally handicapped child; he quarrelled with his colleagues and fell foul of his employers; he scrambled over building sites and went to the theatre and drank in coffee-houses. This book explores what it was like to be at Oxford during the Commonwealth, as a generation struggled to make sense of a society in chaos; it recreates the tensions which tore apart the court of Charles II; and it sets out to bring to life the petty jealousies that formed an integral part of both the building world and the scientific milieu of the Royal Society.