Richard Holmes's 'The Age of Wonder' tells the story of the second scientific revolution, when discoveries in astronomy, chemistry, and natural history transformed both knowledge and imagination at the end of the eighteenth century. Holmes, known primarily as a biographer of Romantic poets, brings a literary sensibility to scientific history, showing how the pursuit of knowledge was inseparable from wonder, ambition, and the cultural currents of Romanticism. His central figures are Joseph Banks, the wealthy naturalist who sailed with Cook and later presided over the Royal Society, and William Herschel, the German musician who became the greatest astronomer of his age, discovering Uranus and revealing the true scale of the cosmos. Holmes also profiles Humphry Davy, whose chemical discoveries and public lectures made science fashionable, and the balloonists whose ascents captured the public imagination. The book shows how scientific discovery and Romantic poetry influenced each other, with Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge responding to the new knowledge even as scientists drew on Romantic ideas of genius and inspiration. Readers will find a richly textured portrait of an age when science was still accessible to amateurs and discovery still seemed magical.