Longitude - Book

Engagingly told true story of John Harrison, the lone genius who met the greatest scientific challenge of his time by perfecting the marine chronometer and solving the problem of measuring longitude at sea, profoundly altering history. Color photos.

Dava Sobel's 1995 bestseller tells how John Harrison, an English clockmaker of the 1700s, built the first clock accurate enough to find longitude at sea. Without a way to measure longitude, sailors could not be sure of their east-west position once land was out of sight. The book follows Harrison's forty-year effort to solve the problem.

The book was adapted as the television drama Longitude. Published by Walker & Company, this compact paperback suits sailors, navigators and anyone interested in the history of science.