Elixir: A Parisian Perfume House and the Quest for the Secret of Life

A Financial Times Best History Book of the Year
A Financial Times Summer Reading Favorite

“[V]ividly evokes cultural life in Bohemian Paris, the turbulence of the French Revolution and its aftermath, and the feuds that plagued rival scientists…Levitt’s social history, especially of perfume, is fascinating.” —Wall Street Journal

“A delightful history of science and scent at the dawn of the modern age.” —Financial Times

“Pulling from historical publications and personal writings, Theresa Levitt vividly explains why perfume—bathed in, lathered on, and orally consumed—had a chokehold on Parisian life.” —Scientific American

“[A] fascinating account of the birth pangs of organic chemistry in 19th-century Paris…[Levitt] has caught well these dreaming, competitive, daring men in the act of living, each striving compulsively for the giddy, intoxicating bliss of insight into the making of the world.” —The Times

Until the 1800s, scientists believed that living matter possessed a spirit or essence that differentiated it from nonliving matter. But even as scientific consensus shifted toward the view that all matter shares the same building blocks, some were not convinced. 

Elixir tells the story of two dissenters—chemists who redrew the boundary between life and nonlife. In the 1830s, Édouard Laugier and Auguste Laurent worked at Laugier Père et Fils, the oldest perfume house in Paris. By day, they prepared the perfumery’s revitalizing elixirs and rejuvenating eaux. In their spare time, they hunted the vital force underlying life itself. Their ideas, roundly condemned by established chemists, led to the discovery of structural differences between naturally occurring molecules and their synthetic counterparts.

Scientists still can’t explain this anomaly, but it may point to critical insights concerning the origins of life. Rich in sparks and smells, brimming with eccentric characters, experimental audacity, and the romance of the Bohemian salon, Elixir gives a fascinating tour of the alchemical revelations that shaped nineteenth-century Paris—and the modern world.