This is the first biography of the brilliant inventor and practical experimenter, British-born David Edward Hughes. A contemporary of Edison and Bell, Hughes made major contributions in the fields of telegraphy, telephony, metal detection, and audiology. His printing telegraph, adopted across much of Europe, made him a fortune. Hughes sent and received wireless signals in 1879, some sixteen years before Marconi, but faced with the skepticism of his peers, he discontinued his research and his accomplishments were only recognized years later.