"My latest book, The Telephone Gambit
: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret, is a nonfiction detective story. It recounts my experience, while working for a year as a science writing fellow at MIT, of stumbling upon a twisted mystery surrounding Bell's role in the invention of the telephone. Working from Bell's laboratory notebooks and his voluminous correspondence, I fell through a kind of historical trap door to becoming increasingly intrigued by the surprising story behind the invention of the telephone: a tale of romance, corruption, and unchecked ambition.In the book, I try to capture the feel of the rich and exciting time in which Bell lived, as well as to tell my own story of chasing down clues about Bell’s life and times in rare archives and artifact collections around the world to unravel the surprising and long-hidden truth about him.
In the course of my research, I unearth a “smoking gun” that leaves little doubt that Bell furtively—and illegally—plagiarized his initial telephone design from his major competitor, Elisha Gray in his quest to secure what would become the most valuable U.S. patent ever issued. Afterwards, as Bell’s device led to the world’s largest monopoly, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, I trace how he hid his invention’s illicit beginnings." (more)
Note: Bevis's great grandfather was not the model.
