![The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures | [Edward Ball]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Ah5OdKlLL._SL175_.jpg "The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures | [Edward Ball]")
The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures
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- Regular Price :$33.60Special Offer: Learn how to get this for $7.49 !
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Average Customer Rating
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LENGTH15 hrs and 19 mins
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RELEASE DATE01-22-13
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AUDIO FORMATS
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Program TypeAudiobook
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PUBLISHER
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Publisher's Summary
From the National Book Award-winning author of Slaves in the Family, a riveting true life/true crime narrative of the partnership between the murderer who invented the movies and the robber baron who built the railroads.
One hundred and thirty years ago Eadweard Muybridge invented stop-motion photography, anticipating and making possible motion pictures. He was the first to capture time and play it back for an audience, giving birth to visual media and screen entertainments of all kinds. Yet the artist and inventor Muybridge was also a murderer who killed coolly and meticulously, and his trial is one of the early instances of a media sensation. His patron was railroad tycoon (and former California governor) Leland Stanford, whose particular obsession was whether four hooves of a running horse ever left the ground at once. Stanford hired Muybridge and his camera to answer that question. And between them, the murderer and the railroad mogul launched the age of visual media.
Set in California during its frontier decades, The Inventor and the Tycoon interweaves Muybridge's quest to unlock the secrets of motion through photography, an obsessive murder plot, and the peculiar partnership of an eccentric inventor and a driven entrepreneur. A tale from the great American West, this popular history unspools a story of passion, wealth, and sinister ingenuity.
©2013 Edward Ball (P)2013 Random House Audio
What the Critics Say
"National Book Award winner Ball (Writing/Yale Univ.; The Genetic Strand: Exploring a Family History Through DNA, 2007, etc.) returns with a complex story about railroad tycoon Leland Stanford and the murdering man who for a time was his protégé, pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge.... A skillfully written tale of technology and wealth, celebrity and murder and the nativity of today's dominant art and entertainment medium." (Kirkus)
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What Members Say
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"Terrible!"
Would you try another book from Edward Ball and/or John H. Mayer?No, absolutely not. Book drug on! It was very confusing as it is told out of sequence and you end up hearing the same event multiple times and included way too much irrelevant information. ***spoiler alert*** the author continually mentions this cool and meticulous murder and it is anything but. I kept thinking maybe he killed more than his wife's lover but apparently not. Also, the author continually mentions how the subject changes his name to "unpronounceable" Aedweard Muybridge but the narrator seems to manage just fine. It is also the name of a couple of kings so it is pronounceable and not just a made up name. We can't finish it, Two of us made it through 8 hours (long drive) and can't see how he can possibly drag the story out for another 8!
Would you ever listen to anything by Edward Ball again?NO
What three words best describe John H. Mayer’s performance?Ok
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?No.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful -
"Fascinating"
If you could sum up The Inventor and the Tycoon in three words, what would they be?This is one of my favorite history books I have 'read' in the last few years. It has a similar style to "The Professor and the Madman" which I also loved. Definitely great insights into the beginning of movies, the founding of Stanford University, and life in California in the late 1800s. Muybridge was certainly an odd character but so were many from the period (e.g., Edison, Leland Stanford, and the railroad men of the time.
It does jump around in time from chapter to chapter, but I got used to that. Definitely, a worthwhile bit of history.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful -
"Wonderfully informative story"
What made the experience of listening to The Inventor and the Tycoon the most enjoyable?The reader
What did you like best about this story?The unbelievable amount of information I did not know.
What about John H. Mayer’s performance did you like?Just the right tone and inflection
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?No, I did not
Any additional comments?Yes. Luckily I had a hard cover copy, which I kept referring to. A lot is lost without seeing the photographs. Also, narrative was choppy.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful -
"Long time to get started,then the history took ov"
What did you like best about The Inventor and the Tycoon? What did you like least?Best: the history of the building of the railroad, the history of photography and specifically the history as it related to California and Yosemite. The least: the entire beginning and set up. Contrived.
Do you think The Inventor and the Tycoon needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?It needs an illustrated version. Cries out for not only Muybridge's photographs but also the paintings mentioned and the other photographers
0 of 0 people found this review helpful