The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore

Who invented the light bulb?

This story brings the biggest lawsuits of its time, a $1 billion case, simply called Edison vs Westinghouse, known in history as “War of Currents.”

It is 1888 and a few well-known streets in America have electricity: Wall St, Madison Ave, 34th St.

“The issue before them: U.S. Letters Patent No. 223,898, granted to Thomas Edison on January 27, 1880, which described the invention of an “incandescent electric lamp.” Quickly nicknamed the Light Bulb Patent by the press, it was without question the most valuable patent ever granted in the history of the United States. And George Westinghouse was accused of infringing on it.”

George Westinghouse hires a young talented lawyer Paul Cravath, because no experienced-lawyer wanted to take a losing case. 

Paul collects all the help he can get. He tracks down Reginald Fessenden, an inventor, who once worked for Thomas Edison, but then was fired suddenly.

Next is Nikola Tesla, a talented inventor, who also once worked for Edison and got into an argument with him.

Thomas Edison has a lot of advantages including his investors. No one wants to go against such giant as Edison. He is the one who sues and likes to win. Besides this big lawsuit, Edison has ongoing lawsuits against Alexander Graham Bell, who beat him with filing for a telephone patent first and won it.

Paul is on the losing end and his last straw is by the name of J.P. Morgan, who is the largest shareholder in Edison General Electric Company. When both men meet, Paul gets his lesson in investing. “Would you like to know the easiest way to make a billion dollars? asked J.P. Morgan. (…) Take a penny. Bury it in the ground for a thousand years. Then dig.”

The story is concentrated on the lawsuit, but it’s written in a very grasping way. It does not sound as a technical lawsuit procedure. It brings some juice squeezed into short chapters, ending with such sentences that make you want to go on to the next chapter right away. There is also an actress who seeks Paul to represent her and there is a reason why she sought him out.

This book is a dedication to Paul Cravath, because of his success and lack of knowledge of him. “… a twenty-six-year-old attorney, only eighteen months out of law school, was at the center of the current war before going on to found one of America’s most preeminent law firms…”

“I think it’s fair to say that Paul Cravath invented the modern law firm, in exactly the same way that Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla invented the light bulb.”

“Paul and his wife participated in the founding of the Council on Foreign Relations. He held many titles serving for the Metropolitan Opera, the Philharmonic, the Juilliard School of Music, the Fisk University, the Italian American Society, and the India Society of America. Paul and his wife became among the greatest of Manhattan’s philanthropists.”

@Facebook/BestHistoricalFiction