Originally given as a lecture at the Royal Institution,
The Chemical History of a Candle
is one of the most popular and widely distributed works of popular science ever written. A remarkably clear and beautifully organized explication of Victorian chemistry and physics, it has gone through myriad editions and translations and has been used to teach the scientific method in societies as different as the Soviet Union and modern Japan. It also provides a window into the mind and science of Michael Faraday, the greatest experimental physicist of the nineteenth century, and quite possibly of all time.