Originally published: London : Granta Books, 1998.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 404-405) and index.

'It was a rather rackety childhood in a way': Cairo and Norfolk, 1910-1928 -- 'Don't you understand, I've got to know!': Somerville and Oxford, 1928-1932 -- 'My years at Cambridge were rich with new discoveries': J.D. Bernal and Cambridge, 1932-1934 -- 'It'll serve me absolutely right if the thing is all wrong': Oxford, insulin and Thomas, 1934-1937 -- 'Nobody could be indifferent to the search for the truth about proteins': Proteins and pregnancy, 1938-1939 -- 'All this penicillin racket you know ... ': War and penicillin, 1939-1945 -- 'The molecule that appears is very beautifully composed': America, Russia and Vitamin B[subscript 12], 1946-1960 -- 'I seem to have spent much more of my life not solving structures than solving them': The Nobel prize and insulin, 1960-1969 -- 'Born not for herself but for the world': China, Africa, India, education and peace, 1959-1988 -- 'Recently everything has become more hopeful': Retirement and after, 1977-1994.