Who was Rosalind Franklin? The story of her life is short, tragically so, but it doesn't lack for tellers. Was she difficult Rosy, the Cruella De Vil of The Double Helix, who nearly knocked Watson's block off? Was she Dr. R.E. Franklin, the humble supporting player whom Watson and Crick thanked in the second-to-last sentence of their famous article in Nature? Or was she Franklin the feminist icon, the tormented genius who was cheated out of biochemistry's ultimate prize?
This much we know: Franklin was brilliant, beautiful, wealthy and tough to get along with. Born in 1920 into a prominent Jewish...