Genius is highly individual and unique yet it shares a compelling quality. In this intriguing introduction Andrew Robinson uses the life and work of familiar geniuses - and some less familiar - to consider what their achievements have in common; whether its heredity, education, hard work, intelligence or just plain luck.

• 1: Defining genius


• 2: Not running in the family


• 3: The schooling of genius


• 4: Intelligence versus genius


• 5: Genius and madness


• 6: Chameleon personalities


• 7: Art versus sciences


• 8: Eureka experiences


• 9: Perspiration and inspiration


• 10: Genius and us

Andrew Robinson is the author of some twenty books covering both the arts and the sciences, which have been acclaimed by both national newspapers and specialist journals. They include Sudden Genius? The Gradual Path to Creative Breakthroughs, a biographical study of genius, and five biographies of exceptionally creative individuals in a wide range of fields: the physicist Albert Einstein (A Hundred Years of Relativity, 2005), the film director Satyajit Ray (The Inner Eye, 1989), the writer Rabindranath Tagore (The Myriad-Minded Man, 1995), the archaeological decipherer Michael Ventris (The Man Who Deciphered Linear B, 2002), and the polymath Thomas Young (The Last Man Who Knew Everything, 2006).