The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel: The Lost Heroine of Astronomy

Dr Emily Winterburn The History Press £20 HB

As a female astronomer working in the 18th century, a comet hunter and the first woman to have a paper read at the Royal Society, Caroline Herschel kept meticulous diaries, notebooks and journals, detailing her domestic and scientific endeavours. Yet she deliberately destroyed all her records for the years from 1788 to 1797, her most productive decade of astronomical discovery.

This book sets out to fill in those lost years, when she discovered eight comets and established her scientific reputation, while also supporting her brother in his own astronomical work, helping his wife with their domestic arrangements and the upbringing of her young nephew. All this is set against the backdrop of social and political upheaval, and scientific advances, both here and on the Continent.

The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel ultimately gives its readers no great revelations and a lot of repetition. Herschel led a quiet life, working hard and dedicated to her family. She was modest and shy of strangers, yet determined to gain her independence and recognition for her work. To do so she had to negotiate the minefield of social and scientific etiquette of the time.

Overall the book does little to shed much new light on Caroline’s life. Perhaps most frustratingly of all, the mystery of why Caroline would deliberately destroy all her journals for the most productive decade of her life, is never resolved.