Sir Henry Bessemer, engineer and inventor, was a real character, and as such can’t really be called Steampunk, but reading his autobiography is surprisingly facinating! From chapters on The Great Exhibition of 1851, to a riveting tale of industrial espionage and secrecy spanning fourty years of Bronze powder making, to a perfectly curious (and ultimately doomed) design for a hydrolically righting saloon compartment on English Channel crossing steam-ships to counteract his terrible sea-sickness, Sir Bessemer writes with that strange but exciting mix of Victorian wonder at technology and a marvellous tone that can be both bashful and boastful in the same sentence. I found the paragraphs detailing the crowds wonderment at the Exhibition particularly moving – such crowds would probably only be seen at concerts or sporting events these days. The Bessemer Saloon story is a particularly sad one, where an inventor and his invention is critically let down by the company they colabborate with, and the public believes the invention to be without merit. A sorry tale, that probably clouds several inventors histories. Still, a good read and nice that the chapters can be read with some independance of each other – thank you so much, Ms Heather McDougal, for pointing it out to me!