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Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer by Michael White, Fourth Estate/Helix ,£18.99/$25, ISBN 1857024168

PRINCIPIA is arguably the most significant publication in the history of science. Without doubt, Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist Britain has ever produced, if also an isolated, obsessive, cruel genius. Michael White’s biography does describe the great man’s scientific achievements, but the real focus is the events in Newton’s tormented personal life.

Newton’s early childhood was marked by rejection and hatred. His mother, Hannah, was widowed before Isaac was born, and when she remarried, her new husband refused to accept her three-year-old son into his home. He never forgot the pain of abandonment

An embittered man, Newton lived a life full of vengeful disputes, including long-running battles with John Flamsteed over access to astronomical data, with Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz over who invented calculus, and with Robert Hooke over virtually everything imaginable. White does not skimp when describing these hostile conflicts.

As the subtitle suggests, there are descriptions of Newton’s secret life-long fascination with alchemy throughout the book. Newton wrote more than a million words on the subject, but many other members of the Royal Society privately shared Newton’s obsession. Alchemists tended to work in secret to avoid the wrath of the church and prosecution under an anti-alchemy law passed by Henry IV. Later monarchs were slightly more tolerant, hoping that discovery of the philosopher’s stone might help the Crown to pay off its debts, but the law remained in force.

White gives enlightening accounts of Newton’s exploits in alchemy and his scientific research, but he also attempts to go one step further by arguing that the former influenced and inspired the latter. His controversial argument is not wholly convincing, and merely distracts from an otherwise fascinating biography.

Even beyond the realm of science, Newton’s life was eventful. He was Master of the Royal Mint for a while—until he reformed the nation’s currency, Britain was on the point of economic collapse. Newton also frequented brothels and bars in the effort to hunt down counterfeiters, whom he would have hung, drawn and quartered. Here was a scientist who could explain gravity, create calculus, humiliate his rivals, dabble in alchemy and still have time to torture counterfeiters—those were the days.