Part of the Synthesis series dedicated to the history of chemistry, Jan Golinski's The Experimental Self presents a nontraditional biography of Sir Humphry Davy. In his introduction, Golinski cautions readers not to impose contemporary notions about institutionalized science, disciplinary specialization, and professional identities onto a figure who lived in a period in which all of these concepts were in flux. He helps readers avoid this mistake by creating a vivid and nuanced portrait of Davy that carefully situates him within specific cultural and scientific contexts. Golinski argues that Davy consciously fashioned himself as a man of science at a time when the “professional scientist” did not exist (3). According to the book's central premise, “Davy's identity was … fragmented,” and he “deployed multiple personae, depending on the circumstances in which he found himself, while making his selfhood a topic of serious experimental inquiry” (181). Golinski identifies six roles that he claims constituted Davy's public personality: enthusiast, genius, dandy, discoverer, philosopher, and traveler.

Each chapter takes up a persona, and because these identities overlap the chapters revisit the various stages of Davy's career. While this strategy entails some inevitable repetition, it works globally because each persona offers different insights into aspects of Davy's life. As part of his analysis, Golinski also considers Davy's publications, especially as they illustrate his successes and struggles. The emphasis on Davy's difficulties, challenges from other men of science, and the networks that facilitated his work, adds narrative interest and helps round out the biography. Golinski avoids the hagiographic approach of some earlier writers, such as Samuel Smiles' portrayal of Davy as a hard-working, self-made bootstrapper in Self-Help (1859). Still, his portrait is largely sympathetic.

While the book does not observe a strict chronology, it begins with Davy's early days in Bristol, moves to his appointment to the Royal Institution, recalls his marriage and baronetcy, considers his stint as Royal Society president, and concludes with his final days of travel and ill-health. In chapter 1 Golinski argues that Davy launched his career with his nitrous oxide experiments by adopting the persona of enthusiast. By presenting himself as excessively passionate about his research, he helped establish a public mode of scientific investigation and self-experimentation that continued throughout his career. At the Royal Institution, he became known for his ostentatious chemical demonstrations and charismatic lectures, which fed his reputation as a genius (chapter 2). Golinski argues that Davy built a reputation as a discoverer (chapter 4) by designing scientific instruments, such as the voltaic pile, that allowed him to isolate elements. During this period, though, critics labeled him a dandy (chapter 3) because of his flamboyant self-presentation, attention to dress, and commitment to women's education.

The first four chapters offer rich insight into the cultural and professional contests surrounding the practice of science. They also show how public issues intersect with Davy's career. For example, refuting the myth of the solitary genius, Golinski explains the not-yet-dead patronage system in the early nineteenth century. He shows how Davy's relationships with Joseph Banks and other aristocrats helped secure funding for his lab at the Royal Institution and, later, led to his Royal Society presidency. This discussion underscores the class issues that contributed to Davy's fraught professional and social positions. After he married Lady Jane Apreece, some aristocrats accused him of social climbing. By contrast, some younger men claimed he protected aristocrats' interests by opposing institutionalized, government-funded science that might enable men from the middling and working classes to study and practice science. Meanwhile, home experimenters attributed his success not to talent, but to a well-equipped laboratory. His relationships with aristocrats, his marriage, and his tenure at the Royal Institution are examples of how the personal and public intersect. Golinski examines the ways in which details of Davy's life and career choices affected public perception, including how other practitioners of science viewed him.

In the last two chapters Golinski investigates Davy's desire to be taken seriously as a philosopher (chapter 5) and his self-reflective final days as a traveler (chapter 6). According to Golinski, Davy's deepest, most intimate wish was to be known as a benefactor to humanity rather than someone who pursued science for personal gain. Positioning himself as a philosopher was also a strategy for transitioning himself from rustic to gentleman as he advanced socially. However, with the rise of the professional scientist, the younger generation saw him as out of date. As his health failed, he traveled the Continent seeking a salubrious climate and answers to his lingering metaphysical questions. His posthumous and persistently popular Consolations in Travel (1830) records his speculations from this period.

Golinski's treatment of aspects of Davy's life that other biographers often omit is a highlight. For example, he discusses Davy's friendships with women intellectuals, such as Maria Edgeworth and Jane Marcet, and provides fascinating insight into other scientific practitioners' attitudes toward women who participated in science and science education. Golinski's discussion of Elements of Chemical Philosophy (1812) traces the history of chemistry textbooks, and his attention to Davy's less flattering character traits is refreshing. In addition to noting tension between theorists and practitioners (for example, Davy learned not to discount leather tanners' practical knowledge), Golinski describes Davy's ungenerous behavior in the safety lamp controversy and remarks that he “never showed any sympathy for the … campaign to educate the working classes” (150). These details add breadth to an otherwise tightly focused subject.

The Experimental Self is not without its problems. Golinski's analysis strains to present Davy as inimical to materialist philosophy. While he notes that in Consolations, Davy “seemed to have more than one representative among the fictional participants” in the dialogue (171), he later aligns Davy with the character who “denounces materialism” rather than the one who espouses it (176). It is unclear how Golinski concludes that only “the spokesmen on the anti-materialist side of the debate” represent Davy's position (176). His investment in presenting Davy as an idealist is also unclear. Golinski also periodically asserts that Davy's practice of science and self-fashioning was deeply embodied. For instance, he claims that Davy “cultivate[d] an embodied mode of investigation” (45), that “he personified the figure of the genius in … a physically embodied way” (65), and that his authority was “tied to [his] embodied persona” (101). He does not, however, connect these tantalizing these comments to his central claim. At times Golinski exhibits a flat understanding of romanticism. When he asserts that “genius was often thought of as a purely intellectual quality, even a spiritual one” (50), he does not take into account recent scholarship that points to the romantics' physical understanding of mental qualities. Finally, while the global repetition works, Golinski unnecessarily repeats details at the local level rather than treating similar topics and claims together within chapters.

Overall, though, The Experimental Self is clearly and engagingly written. It offers an in-depth look at an important figure in a liminal period of science history that also considers the broader sociohistorical context. Golinski's study is useful to Davy scholars for its frank portrayal of the chemist and his career from Bristol to Geneva. Its writing style and handsome illustrations also make it attractive to a wider audience.