Their daughter Irène was born in 1897, just as Marie Curie was beginning intensive laboratory work. Gradually she enlisted the help of her husband in identifying the source of radiation in pitchblende ore from which uranium already had been extracted. She chose as a topic for her doctoral thesis the radioactive properties of uranium, which were discovered by Henri Becquerel in 1896. The first few chapters of Obsessive Genius are devoted to Marie's childhood in Poland (her given name was Marya Sklodowski), her arrival in Paris to study physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne, and her decision to marry the physicist Pierre Curie in 1895. Her scientific work and the Parisian milieu are described, but readers in search of detailed and authoritative accounts of scientific investigations and the French scientific community during this period will have to look elsewhere. Goldsmith's book, which draws on many published and archival sources, is a fast-moving, easily read popular biography, which focuses principally on Marie Curie's family and social interactions, her psychological states of mind and obstacles she faced in her education and career.
Goldsmith is not the first to describe Marie Curie as "obsessive": In Grand Obsession: Marie Curie and Her World (1989), Rosalynd Pflaum used the term to characterize the determination and drive of two generations of Curies: Marie and Pierre, and their daughter and son-in-law, Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. The latest biography using the papers is Barbara Goldsmith's Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie. Among those who have written superb studies of the Curies since this material was made public are Susan Quinn ( Marie Curie: A Life ), Soraya Boudia ( Marie Curie et son laboratoire ), Anna Hurwic ( Pierre Curie ) and Loïc Barbo ( Curie: Le rêve scientifique ).
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