The Alchemist's Daughter

Living a secluded life in Selden Manor, Buckinghamshire, Emilie Selden and her father, John Selden, spend their days in their laboratory conducting experiments and testing new theories. It is England in the early eighteenth century, and with the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton still fresh in the minds of the populace, scientific enquiry of the natural world is becoming increasingly fashionable.

Positive that society's future lies in adherence to the practicalities of the physical sciences, both Emilie and John are keen to unlock the secrets of palingenesis and phlogiston, the composite study of air and fire. Considering themselves alchemists - dabblers in natural philosophies of the material world - and driven by the pursuit of knowledge, they spurn the strictures of conventional religion, which they see as smacking of fallacy and wearisome superstition.