author
Joseph Priestley
1733–1804
Best known for helping open the age of modern chemistry, this lively 18th-century thinker also wrote about religion, politics, education, and language. His life joined laboratory experiments with bold public debate, making him one of the Enlightenment's most wide-ranging figures.
3 Audiobooks
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
by Joseph Priestley
About the author
Born in Yorkshire in 1733, Joseph Priestley became a dissenting minister, teacher, and writer before gaining lasting fame as a scientist. He published widely across many subjects, but he is remembered especially for experiments on gases and for isolating the gas later named oxygen.
Priestley did not separate science from the rest of life. He wrote on education, grammar, religious belief, and political liberty, and he was part of the lively intellectual world of 18th-century Britain, including circles linked to the Lunar Society. His support for religious tolerance and reform made him admired by some and fiercely opposed by others.
After anti-Priestley riots in Birmingham destroyed his home and laboratory in 1791, he eventually emigrated to the United States. He spent his final years in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, where he died in 1804, leaving behind a body of work that shows how curiosity can reach across science, faith, and public life.