One day in 1882, Thomas Edison flipped a switch that lit up lower Manhattan with incandescent light and changed the way people live ever after.

The electric light bulb was only one of thousands of Edison’s inventions, which include the phonograph and the kinetoscope, an early precursor to the movie camera. As a boy, observing a robin catch a worm and then take flight, he fed a playmate a mixture of worms and water to see if she could fly! Here’s an accessible, appealing biography with 100 black-and-white illustrations.


托馬斯·愛迪生出生在美國俄亥俄州的米蘭，由於患病，愛迪生較晚才開始接受學校教育。他愛發問、愛動腦子的習慣，令學校老師火大， 這使愛迪生只有受過三個月的學校教育。

愛迪生的母親南西毅然地把托馬斯帶回家，由自己來教導愛迪生，並用自己的方法教導愛迪生知識，同時鼓勵他讀書和作實驗。從這一刻起，愛迪生的一生就完全改變了。首先使他獲得名望的發明是1877年的留聲機。這令公眾意想不到的成就，看上去幾乎不可思議。