T is book tells the story of two of the most important figures in the history of chemistry. Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-1786) was the first to prepare oxygen and realise that air is a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen; he also discovered many important organic and inorganic substances. His fellow chemist and good friend, Torbern Bergman (1735-1784), was one of the pioneers in analytical and physical chemistry. In this carefully researched biography, the author, Anders Lennartson, explains the chemistry of Scheele and Bergman while putting their discoveries in the context of other 18^th-century chemistry. Much of the information contained in this work is available in English for the first time.

Anders Lennartsonreceived his Ph.D. from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) in 2009 with a thesis concerning the synthesis of optically active compounds from achiral starting materials (absolute asymmetric synthesis). This included the first optical resolution of five- and seven-coordinate metal complexes. After a stay at the University of Southern Denmark working on bioinorganic chemistry and spin crossover and at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) working with chemical storage of solar energy, he returned to the University of Gothenburg as a technician. Anders has published 60 scientific papers and number of popular science papers, mainly on historic subjects. He has written three books in Swedish, including the first modern biography of Carl Wilhelm Scheele, published in 2015.The Chemical Works of Carl Wilhelm Scheele, an analysis of all Scheele's publications, was published by Springer in 2017.