> Skip to content
The Genius Myth
  • Published: 19 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529921694
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320
Categories:

The Genius Myth





From the acclaimed journalist and author of Difficult Women, a timely and entertaining take-down of the genius myth, exploring the surprising history of invention, inspiration and distortion by which some lives are elevated to 'greatness' - and the unexpected consequences for us all.

*A Guardian, Financial Times, New Statesman and GQ Book for 2025 *

The tortured poet. The rebellious scientist. The monstrous artist. The tech disruptor.

You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it is prepared to tolerate.

Taking us from the Renaissance Florence of Leonardo da Vinci to the Floridian rocket launches of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Helen Lewis unravels a word that we all use — without really questioning what it means.

Along the way, she uncovers the secret of the Beatles’ success, asks how biographers should solve the Austen Problem, and reveals why Stephen Hawking thought IQ tests were for losers (before taking one herself). And she asks if the modern idea of genius — a class of special people — is distorting our view of the world.

  • Published: 19 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529921694
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320
Categories:

About the author

Helen Lewis

Helen Lewis is a staff writer at the Atlantic, and a former deputy editor of the New Statesman. She has written for the Guardian, Sunday Times, New York Times and Vogue. She is a regular host of BBC Radio 4’s Week in Westminster, a regular panellist on the News Quiz and Saturday Review, and a paper reviewer on The Andrew Marr Show. She was the 2018/19 Women in the Humanities Honorary Writing Fellow at Oxford University. She tweets at @helenlewis

Also by Helen Lewis

See all
penguin pop image
penguin pop image