The Alchemist's Daughter

by Katharine McMahon

Book Overview

During the English Age of Reason, a woman cloistered since birth learns that knowledge is no substitute for experience. Raised by her father in near isolation in the English countryside, Emilie Selden is trained as a brilliant natural philosopher and alchemist. In the spring of 1725, father and daughter embark upon their most daring alchemical experiment to date-attempting to breathe life into dead matter. But when Emilie-against her father's wishes-experiences...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307238512
• ISBN13: 9780307238511
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 338 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.8" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Sensitive and clever

I didn't know what to expect from this book, and I was afraid it would be some superficial meddling in alchemy, as it is so trendy to do nowadays. Instead I discovered that the author was not only very knowledgable about the topic of natural philosophy in general, and alchemy in particular but also that she did not use this knowledge to show off but rather to tell us a very human tale about love and a strange human experiment. It was very convincing and as someone who is quite familiar with this ideological background I felt that I got the right quantity and right quality of science behind the story. And the story was very touching, believable, not simplifying the characters and situations, and the lack of a 100 per cent happy end just makes it more human and believable. I will surely read it again.

A poignant novel filled with startlingly beauty and substance

The most any of us probably learned about the arcane discipline of alchemy is that it had something to do with turning base metals into gold. What far fewer of us may realize is how much the fanciful and seemingly impossible principles of alchemy contributed to the hard sciences of today, such as physics and chemistry. In THE ALCHEMIST'S DAUGHTER, British novelist Katharine McMahon has stepped boldly into that shadowy period during the early 1700s when alchemy was in its twilight and the new physical sciences --- identified by such luminaries as Sir Isaac Newton --- were emerging into daylight. For those at the top of the great societal heap known in Britain and Europe as the Age of Enlightenment, the whole universe must have seemed ripe for the picking. Scientific discoveries had vastly improved navigation, trade, medicine and manufacturing, bringing exciting new products, pastimes and services into the lives of those able to afford them. Living outside London in a rundown rural estate on the periphery of all this activity, Emilie Selden, an unlikely apprentice to her reclusive widowed father, grows up as a rigorously trained natural scientist and philosopher. Barely aware of social graces, human emotions or the domestic arts, Emilie spends most of her first 19 years immersed in the intellectual crucible of her father's laboratory. Then the opposite sex happens. Now that would seem almost a basic necessity for a historical novel, except that at this point several things could happen. The story could have dissolved into a banal romance with the usual steamy vocabulary; it could have forged virtuously onward as a boring triumph of feminist brains over shallow amour; or it could have lost its way entirely and become a social justice tract about how hard life could be for the working classes. But this is where THE ALCHEMIST'S DAUGHTER shows much more than its scholarly mettle. From this most delicate turning point --- the year 1725 "when everything changed" in Emilie's retrospective eye --- McMahon achieves a brilliant, poignant and utterly unforgettable tour de force that weaves together the real complexity of human confusion and aspiration. It's not only about a brilliant young woman surviving on the edge of her social and historical milieu; it's not only about love betrayed and love fiercely guarded; and it's not only about the thundering clash of ignorance and ethics. In McMahon's supple and experienced hands, her story is all of this and much more. Emilie is so fully and powerfully drawn that she fills, overflows, the strangely diverse historical container in which she began, herself a secret "experiment" whose conclusion is yet to be. Through Emilie's reflections, notes, diaries and disasters, THE ALCHEMIST'S DAUGHTER takes you from the glories of the Age of Enlightenment to the foul underside of British 18th-century life, and everywhere in between. It's a page-turner with startling beauty and substance that takes the strange alchemy of

A historical roller-coaster romance

Katharine McMahon introduces us to the eighteenth century world of developing scientific theories, hidden deals in the slave trade, emerging confidence of women and a roller coaster of a romance. Her attention to detail helps us breathe the stale London air, sense the oppresive dark interiors, hear the rustle of the dresses. Everyone has a secret, but the heroine Emilie seems to come through the fog with new hope for a more enlightened age, rising above her own tragedy. Lovely prose, a joy to read, an insight into the spirit of the age, dont miss this book.

a gem of a read

Unfortunately, a great many books are released each month, all clamouring (whether they merit it or not) for attention, so that it is rather easy for out of the ordinary gems to be missed. Such, sad to say, is the case of Katherine McMahon's "The Alchemist's Daughter." McMahon's novel was a fantastic and absorbing read -- I was absolutely riveted, and if you're looking for something fresh, and a little different from the usual, I'd really recommend you try "The Alchemist's Daughter" -- it's worth the hardcover price! While Sir John Selden has spent a lot of time and effort on his only daughter's, Emilie, scientific education, he has, unfortunately, also brought her up in seclusion on his estate in Buckinghamshire. This, of course leaves Emilie vulnerable to the manipulations and influence of others. So that, when a dashing adventurer, Robert Aislabie, comes calling just around the time when Emilie's raging hormones are at their height (she's reached her seventeenth birthday), she finds herself quite vulnerable to Aislabie charms. Going against her father's wishes, Emilie insists on marrying Aislabie and leaves her father's home in order to live with her new husband in London. But, in spite of all its noise and liveliness, Emilie soon finds herself feeling out of place in London and with her husband's friends -- her wonderful education seems not to have prepared her for London's dazzling society. Intimidated and numbed by all she sees and is experiencing, it will be a while before Emilie removes the blinders from her eyes, realises who and what she is and so, become the woman her father always hoped she would be... While one of the previous reviewers was correct to note that this was not a happy book, I did think that the novel ended on an uplifting note, full of hope and promise. This is a novel about personal growth and maturity, even if the growth didn't take place until the final chapters of the book. As such, it is quite possible for readers to grow impatient and irritated with Emilie. And while Emilie isn't the most engaging of heroines, I would argue that one should always remember that in spite of all her education, this is still a young teenager, who was brought up in seclusion and who had very little intercourse with society for most of her young life. That Emilie is always quick to blame others for the shortcomings in her life, her quickness to anger, and the fact that she moves about for much of the book in a kind of daze, allowing Aislabie to run her life is, completely understandable. Emilie definitely has blinders, and it will take the course of the book for them to come off and for her to finally act (instead of merely reacting) in order to undo some of the damage her indifference and anger has wrought. I thought that "The Alchemist's Daughter" was a wonderful and worthwhile read. For me, the author successfully recaptured the feel and mood of the period; so that even though she didn't go in for overly luxurious and vivid descri

Unusually satisfying read!

I was very impressed with this first novel. Katharine McMahon does an impressive job of evoking the 18th century and the life of a unique heroine, Emilie Selden, who is kept cloistered in her family's crumbling manor house and trained as a scientist by her severe, eccentric father. An intellectual in an era when women were never prized for their intellect, Emilie is the ultimate rationalist, until she falls in love with a handsome but caddish gentleman, who helps her escape from the cold, scientific world of her father's laboratory. But while Emilie is thrilled by the world of the senses, and passion and romance, she discovers that they carry a heavy price, and when she and her husband return to her father's house, she discovers that you truly can never go home again. I found Emilie to be a truly compelling heroine, quite different from the usual female protagonists of literary or historical novels. There are elements of this book, particularly the setting, which reminded me of Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith, as well as the Victorian classics The Woman in White and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The writing is rich and evocative without being syrupy or overly precious. An excellent read for women who like sophisticated entertainment.