Conversations on Chemistry

Marcet, Jane. Conversations on Chemistry. 6th ed. 2 vols. London Longman, 1819. 

Jones, Thomas P. New Conversations on Chemistry. Grigg, Elliot Co., Philadelphia. 1848. 

Marcet s book, Conversations on Chemistry In Which the Elements of That Science are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments, was first published in 1806. Designed with women readers in mind, it used conversations between a teacher and two female students to convey the information. The 18th and last edition was in 1853. See Rayner-Canham, M. F. and Rayner-Canham, G. W. (1998). Women in Chemistry Their Changing Roles from Alchemical Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century. American Chemical Society and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, pp. 32-35. 

Jane Marcet was renowned for her book Conversations on Chemistry, in which the elements of that Science are familiarly explained and illustrated by experiments. The book was designed for the woman reader to enable her to understand principles of chemistry. See Morse, E. J. (2004). Marcet, J. H. (1769—1858). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, http //www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18029, accessed 15 Nov 2007. 

Conversations on Chemistry Talk about Phlogiston in the Coffee House Society, 1780-87 , in T. H. Levere and G. L E. Turner (eds), Discussing Chemistry and Steam The Minutes of a Coffee House Philosophical Society (Oxford Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 191-205. 

Davy, H. (1814) Conversations on Chemistry, in which the Elements of that Science are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments and Plates, Didnep s Press [etc.] (quoted after Dorozhkin, 2012). 

FIGURE 284. Conversations on Chemistry was actually authored by Mrs. Jane Marcet. It is a beautiful teaching text that uses Socratic dialogue involving a Mrs. B. and two adolescent girls, Caroline and Emily. It inspired the young Michael Faraday s interest in chemistry and appeared in a number of editions over almost 50 years and sold over 160,000 copies. 

Conversations on Chemistry is a delightful interplay between a Mrs. B. (sometimes referred to as Mrs. Bryan ) and Caroline and Emily (ages 13 to 15). Its coverage of chemical principles, while accessible, is not at all superficial, and Mrs. Marcet updated her own editions by including the latest work of her correspondent Davy and other prominent chemists. Here is a selection found on pages 198-199 of the 1814 American edition. 

At the very start of Marcet s Conversations on Chemistry, Caroline says To confess the truth, Mrs. B., I am not disposed to form a very favorable idea of chemistry, nor do I expect to derive much entertainment from it. I prefer those sciences that exhibit nature on a grand scale, to those which are confined to the minutiae of petty details. Four years after Dalton s Atomic Theory and already I m bored from teen-age students ... 

Real Fairy Folks or The Fairy Land of Chemistry (Lucy Rider Meyer, Boston, 1887) was a rather too precious take on Jane Marcet s marvelous Conversations on Chemistry, first published 80 years earlier. Twins (Joseph and Josephine or Joey and Jessie—sentimental descendants of Sol and Luna ) learn chemistry from their uncle Richard James, a chemist also known as The Professor. ... 

He read The Improvement of the Mind, which suggested keeping a notebook of ideas and observations. He began one. He read an article on electricity in Encyclopedia Britannica and confirmed what he could using a small electrostatic generator. He read Jane Marcet s Conversations on Chemistry, intended more particularly [for] the female sex and decided to become a chemist. 

Marcet had become knowledgeable in the subject by the same method she used in teaching conversation—conversations with her husband, a London physician and chemist, and friends, Berzelius, Davy, and other notables of the scientific community. In Marcet s book conversations were among a fictitious Mrs. B and her pupils Emily and Caroline. This style was evidently effective because the book went through 16 editions and an estimated l60,000 copies were sold in the United States before 1853.Its influence on Michael Faraday can be read in his own words Mrs. Marcet s Conversations on Chemistry. .. gave me my foundation in that science. ... 

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