![]() To think of what legal warfare those few words had birthed.” Patent #233,898, otherwise known as the patent for the incandescent light: “The whole of the thing was fewer than one thousand words. It breaks down the real-life drama behind U.S. This historical novel about electricity-yes, really-is briskly moving and entirely engrossing. (As long as I have a working lamp on my bedside table so I can read at night, I’m good, thank you.) How is it, then, that I could not put down Graham Moore’s The Last Days of Night? I don’t grasp the principles of electricity, and to be honest I don’t give them much thought. If you ask me how electricity is generated, you will hear crickets chirping. Patrick Anderson regularly reviews mysteries and thrillers for The Washington Post.Rating: An illuminating look at the compulsion of invention Moore’s book demonstrates this point well, and his intellectual curiosity, graceful prose and tireless research have made “ The Last Days of Night” a model of superior historical fiction. For good or ill, human inventiveness is inexhaustible. Salesmen like Edison.” He mentions other innovators then emerging, including Henry Ford and the Wright brothers. Although, if Cravath was buying, he did sometimes enjoy lobster and good wine at Delmonico’s.Īs the story ends, Cravath looks back on the birth of electricity - the world-changing “end of night” - and concludes that “in order to produce such a wonder the world required men like each of them. ![]() When his work went well, Tesla would gladly live in furnished rooms and subsist on saltine crackers. He lived for ideas, solutions to problems, and was content to have lesser men implement them. In many ways, the inventor he most admires is the often bewildering Tesla, who cared not a whit for fame and fortune. He’s fascinated by the nature of genius and its remarkable flowering near the end of the 19th century. Ultimately, Moore’s novel addresses more than the epic battle between two great inventors. A detailed author’s note makes clear what is historical fact in the novel - most of the story - and what is fiction. Morgan finally wields his money like a bludgeon to force a settlement of the long war between Edison and Westinghouse. This romance really happened, although Moore admits embellishments. Cravath’s father, a clergyman, co-founded Fisk University in Nashville after the Civil War to provide education for freed slaves.Ĭravath himself engages in a cautious romance with the beautiful, formidable Agnes Huntington, who sang with the Metropolitan Opera. Cravath’s grandfather helped found Ohio’s Oberlin College to foster coeducation. The novel abounds with fascinating real-life characters. The horror that followed, although factual, is almost beyond belief. Soon enough, a condemned man was gagged and strapped into the first electric chair. He used his political influence to convince the New York legislature that electrocution - using the AC current - should replace hanging in carrying out the death penalty. Proof, Edison’s man declared, of the fate that might befall America’s children if Westinghouse had his way.Įdison did not stop with dogs. The DC power caused the dogs to yelp in pain the stronger AC voltage inflicted horrid deaths upon them. Edison, he knew, was not a man to cross.Įdison set out to persuade the country that his rival’s AC current was so dangerous that it would “murder your children.” He sent a man up and down the East Coast to hold public exhibitions at which DC and then AC power were sent through the bodies of dogs. Cravath, fearing that Edison might have Tesla killed - his laboratory did mysteriously burn down - kept him in hiding for months. He went to work for Westinghouse to perfect his invention. Tesla found a way to use the higher-voltage alternating current, or AC, to overcome the distance limit and thus revolutionize the spread of electricity. Unfortunately, DC could be transmitted only short distances, and therefore only those with enough money to buy a generator for their homes could enjoy electricity. At that point, Edison could offer only direct current, or DC, power. Cravath’s job was to persuade the courts that, despite the patent office ruling, his client’s bulb was different from Edison’s.Īnother inventor enters the story, the Serbian-born, highly eccentric, often unstable Nikola Tesla. Edison was demanding $1 billion in damages. patent office had ruled that Westinghouse’s bulb violated Edison’s patent. The legal case, simply put, was that Edison had patented a lightbulb and that Westinghouse had invented a better one, but the U.S. "The Last Days of Night" by Graham Moore (Random House)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |