Few readers will have heard much - if anything - of Charles Hutton before opening the pages of this book. And, to be fair, Hutton may not have done quite enough to achieve the lasting recognition of contemporaries and near contemporaries, such as Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy or Laplace. However, as this book reveals, his story is a remarkable account of the life and achievements of a largely self-taught mathematician from humble beginnings to a successful career specialising in what would now be called applied mathematics.

The book benefits - but possibly also suffers - from Mr Wardhaugh’s apparent admiration for his subject. There is almost an over-abundance of detail about what might be regarded as peripheral aspects of Hutton’s life, but this reader’s judgement at least falls in the author’s favour in capturing, and also making reasonably accessible to non-specialist readers, the trajectory of Hutton’s remarkable life. Mr Wardhaugh’s care in avoiding the temptation of making the book a simple hagiography of his subject is also welcome, as he covers the less attractive features of Hutton’s personality as well as his successes.

For reader’s interested in the story of the development of scientific and mathematical thinking in Britain in the years spanning the close of the seventeenth and the early years of the eighteenth centuries this is a book that will enlighten and entertain, particularly in the retelling of the petty rivalries that were a feature of this period in history.