Edwin Hubble: American Astronomer (Book Report Biographies)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Compact Biography for Young Readers
Review: Having been a fan of Edwin Hubble since I first learned of him in high school in the early Fifties and read his classic work, The Realm of the Nebulae, while in college, I have collected everything about him I could find. He died suddenly during my senior year in high school and I was shocked and saddened to learn of it in the January, 1954 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. I had long hoped a biography would be forthcoming but , except for a few brief ones in a few journals, no full length treatment was produced. I talked to Dr. Charles A. Whitney once about one he was to write which he told me was on hold but it never was completed. The first book with much biographical material was in a novel entitled Hubble Time published in 1987 which was about a fictional granddaughter. There is much biographical material in it about Hubble, however. One of its highlights is the publication of an essay about Hubble by Aldous Huxley which, according to the novel, had never been published. I well recall having read this very essay in the early Fifties! I had tried to find it several times since but could find no reference to it and it has been a great mystery where I read it. So, great was my surprise to find it in Hubble Time.

Finally, in 1989, a biography was published in Russia by two Russian scientists followed by Gale Christiansons excellent biography in 1995, both books long overdue. I also have copies of journals containing many of Hubble's scientific papers, all his books and a copy of his doctoral thesis. Now several volumes for young people have been written of which Mary Virginia Fox' is one. It is an excellent overview of his life and work for young people which can easily be read in one sitting and contains some photographs which I had not previously seen. It is good that such an important American astronomer, whose discoveries have been called "the most significant contributions to cosmology since Copernicus" and of whom Stephen Hawking has said "changed the concept of the universe more profoundly than anyone else", should be made known to a young generation. And Hubble's legacy continues in the profound new findings being produced with the great space telescope that appropriatly bears his name.

I would have loved to have had this excellent little book during my own early years.