Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994) was renowned for her medically-important work on penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin. Fully engaged with the political and social currents of her time, she participated in some of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century: women's education; the globalisation of science; the rise and fall of communism; and international peace movements. A wife, mother and grandmother, she cared deeply about the wellbeing of individuals in all cultures.

Georgina Ferry's biography of the only British female scientist to receive the Nobel Prize - Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life - was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award. Bloomsbury Reader 2014 edition is reissued with a new preface.