Charles Trueheart is a contributing editor at the American Scholar. Biography as literature lost one of its modern masters when Edmund Morris died in May. His magnum opus on Theodore Roosevelt, begun ...

Thomas Alva Edison was an inventor unlike any throughout history—and his impact can still be felt in your everyday life. Born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11, 1847, Edison's inventions, which included ...

Thomas Edison, celebrating his 81st birthday, sits at the telegraph key at Fort Myers, Florida, Feb. 25, 1928,which turned on the new lighting system in Bellingham, Washington (AP photo). The myth is ...

The Edisons -- Childhood and boyhood -- The wanderyears -- The free-lance inventor -- Pluck-and-luck Edison -- "A bloated eastern manufacturer" -- The inventor and the "Barons" -- Menlo Park -- The ...

Given that inventor Thomas Edison had a curious mind, maybe it’s fitting that with “Edison,” author Edmund Morris has given readers a curious kind of biography. A woman who was a St. Louis television ...