Jane Haldimand, the first woman to write a chemistry text, was born in 1769 in London, England. She was well-educated by tutors employed by her family. In 1799, she married Swiss physician Alexander John Gaspard Marcet, who was elected into the Royal Society in 1808. Through her husband's position, Jane Marcet had access to some of the most famous chemists, discussing the latest chemical discoveries and theories. In 1805, she published the first of 16 editions of her text, Conversations on Chemistry. In Which the Elements of That Science Are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments. As a nonscientist, Jane Marcet was not discouraged or overwhelmed by the complexity of the subject.

On attending, for the first time, experimental lectures, the author found it almost impossible to derive any clear or satisfactory information from the rapid demonstrations which are usually... crowded into popular courses of this kind. But frequent opportunities having afterwards occurred of conversing with a friend on the subject of chemistry, and of repeating a variety of experiments, she became better acquainted with the principles of that science, and began to feel highly interested in its pursuit. It was then that she perceived, in attending the excellent lectures delivered at the Royal Institution...the great advantages which her precious knowledge of the subject, slight as it was, gave her over others who had not enjoyed the same means of private instructions. Every fact or experiment attracted her attention, and served to explain some theory to which she was not a total stranger; and she had the gratification to find that the numerous and elegant illustrations, for which that school is so much distinguished, seldom failed to produce on her mind the effect for which they were intended.
(J. Marcet, preface to Conversations on Chemistry, C. Mercer & Co.: London, 1806, Vol. 1.)

She invited the reader to engage in learning chemistry through observation, study, and discussion. Chemist Michael Faraday praised Marcet for being "e;a good friend to me, as she must have been to many of the human race."e;

[I]t was in those books I found the beginning of my philosophy...and Mrs. Marcet's Conversations on Chemistry which gave me my foundation in that science...I felt that I had got hold of an ancor [sic] in chemical knowledge, and clung fast to it. Hence my deep veneration for Mrs. Marcet: first, as one able to convey the truth and principle of those boundless fields of knowledge which concern natural things, to the young, untaught, and inquiring mind.
(Edgar Fahs Smith, Old Chemistries, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1927, pp 67-68.)

1. The History of Economic Thought: Jane Haldimand Marcet

1. Alic, M. The Popularisation and Professionalisation of Science; Hypatia's Heritage: Beacon Press, Boston, 1986; pp 176-178.
2. Creese, M. R. S. British Women of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries Who Contributed to Research in the Chemical Sciences. British Journal for the History of Science 1991, 24, pp 275-305.
3. Conversations on Chemistry. In Which the Elements of That Science Are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments; Magill, F. N., Ed.; C. Mercer & Co.: London, 1806; Vols. 1 & 2.
4. Miller, J. A. Women in Chemistry. In Women of Science: Righting the Record; Kass-Simon, G., Farnes, P., Eds.; Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1990; pp 300-333.
5. Rayner-Canham, M. F.; Rayner-Canham, G. W. Women in Chemistry: Their Changing Roles from Alchemical Times to The Mid-Twentieth Century; American Chemical Society and Chemical Heritage Foundation: Philadelphia, PA, 1998; pp 32-35.
6. Rose, H. Nine Decades, Nine Women, Ten Nobel Prizes: Gender Politics at the Apex of Science. In The Founders of Electrochemistry; Open Court: La Salle, IL, 1975; pp 66-67, 95.