The English Chemist

The controversial story of one of the twentieth century’s most famed scientists, Rosalind Franklin, who discovered the two-chain helical structure of DNA in 1952--but was then cheated out of the Nobel Prize.

Rosalind Franklin knows that to be a woman in a man’s world is to be invisible. In the 1950s, science is a gentleman’s profession and in the years after WWII there are plenty of scientists who want to keep it that way.

After being segregated at Cambridge, then ignored and criticized in the workplace, she has no intention of being seen as a second-class scientist and throws everything into proving her worth. But despite her success in unlocking the very secret of life, the ultimate glory is claimed by the men she left in her wake.

Inspired by the true story of a woman so many tried to silence, The English Chemist is a tale of hope and perseverance, love and betrayal.

Jessica Mills is a journalist and author. She has written for publications such as the Independent, the Wall Street Journal, and Business Insider, and she was an editor at Dow Jones and a member of the Women at Dow Jones steering committee. She lives in England.