Celebrated as the greatest scientific genius of all time, Isaac Newton is said to have rewritten the laws of nature after watching the legendary apple falling from a tree in his garden. Yet even though he was driven by rational thinking, experiments and observation, the man who laid the foundations of modern science had a darker side. He was both hermit and tyrant, driven by an obsession to go beyond what we now call science to delve into the occult. This compelling biography sets out to discover what made Newton tick; it reveals his hot-headedness and his ego, as well as his deeply-held religion and his illegal practice of alchemy. Drawing on rarely seen documents, interviews with leading scientists and dramatisations of Newton and his contemporaries speaking in their own words, we get to grips with the real man behind the myth, the magician behind the scientist and bring to life the true genius himself.