Louis Braille : A Touch of Genius

This new biography includes 31 never-before-translated letters, some written by Louis's own hand. An extraordinary collection of documents, photographs, and artistic works--some unearthed from a curator's private archives in France--complement Mellor's meticulous primary research into Louis's life as a child, student, teacher, musician and genius inventor. This new, visually elegant hardcover book adds a dimension to the material on Louis Braille's life that has fed schoolchildren's biography projects for many years.

Michael Mellor embarked on a biography of Louis Braille when he happened upon several dozen of Braille's letters on display at l'Institut National de Jeunes Aveugles (INJA), the school in Paris where Braille was a student and teacher. Mellor is editor emeritus of the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind in New York City. He holds an M.A. in the History of Science from the University of Leeds in England, where he was born.