A recurring theme of the book is the relation between science and poetry in the Romantic era. He also describes the relationships between the scientists of that time, and the early days of the Royal Society. There is a chapter on the early history of ballooning including pioneers Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, Vincent Lunardi, Jean-Pierre Blanchard and James Sadler. Other profiles include African explorer Mungo Park. Holmes focuses particularly on the lives and works of Sir Joseph Banks, the astronomers William and Caroline Herschel, and chemist Humphry Davy. The book won the 2009 Royal Society Prize for Science Books, the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction, and the 2010 National Academies Communication Award.
Holmes, a literary biographer, also looks at the influence of science on the arts in the Romantic era. In it, the author describes the scientific discoveries of the polymaths of the late eighteenth century and how this period formed the basis for modern scientific discoveries. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science is a 2008 popular biography book about the history of science written by Richard Holmes.
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