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Newton’s Apple by Peter Aughton, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20, ISBN 0297843214 Reviewed by Roy Herbert

THIS is an excellently written biography of the genius Sir Isaac Newton. It has popular appeal in mind and so its accounts of his experiments and discoveries are both accurate and understandable, and his importance in science explained. Driven by a fierce curiosity, yet often lost in thought – he could have been the origin of the stereotypical absent-minded professor – Newton was an early member of the Royal Society.

Aughton includes copious extracts from contemporary documents that show Newton, his fellow scientists and other great personalities of the 17th century, such as Robert Hooke, John Flamsteed and Christopher Wren, fully alive and interesting. They move against a lurid background of events as sensational as the Great Plague and the Fire of London.

Generously illustrated, it is an extremely satisfying book.