In the 1820s and 1830s, Michael Faraday (1791-1867) undertook crucial work in electromagnetism which forms the basis of modern electromagnetic technology. In the third of this three-volume collection of his papers, published between 1839 and 1855, Faraday presents his notes on other equally brilliant investigations, including his landmark work on the effect of magnetism on light.

Originally apprenticed to a bookbinder, Michael Faraday (1791-1867) began to attend Sir Humphrey Davy's chemistry lectures purely out of interest. Although he soon recognised that science would be his vocation, there was no defined career path to follow, and when he applied to Davy for work he was gently told to 'attend to the bookbinding'. It was only after a laboratory explosion in which Davy partially lost his sight that Faraday was taken on as his amanuensis. From this difficult beginning stemmed perhaps the most famous scientific career of the nineteenth century. This three-volume collection of Faraday's papers provides a comprehensive record of a key branch of his work. Volume 3, first published in 1855, includes his landmark paper on the effect of magnetism on light (known now as the Faraday Effect), work on the chemical implications of magnetism, and a fascinating speculation on a link between electricity and gravity.