Scientists and inventors have also sometimes written poetry--Sir Humphry Davy comes immediately to mind--but usually as a sideline. Charles Cros was equally succesful as a scientific inventor and as a poet, and in recent decades his poetry has steadily gained critical favor. . . . his poetry has steadily gained critical favor. While he lived, Cros was outshone by various more ostentatious contemporaries and made no attempt to attach himself to anyone who could further his literary career. In addition, there was little in his personal life to attract attention. Unlike Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, not much the poet did was apt to create a scandal, nor was he involved in any noisy celebrated causes. Furthermore, generally he was not one to lend his name to political stances or movements. Thus, less notice was taken of him in his own day than might have been the case had he been...