FALL IN LOVE WITH SLEEP AGAIN

Before 1879, when Thomas Edison came up with the "rst practical incandescent light bulb, all lighting had been fuelled by gas and oil. The light bulb, heavily promoted via the Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company, literally set the world alight. The bulbs were practical – small and cheap and safe – and emitted just the right amount of light, and began to take o# in homes and businesses throughout the world.

Human beings had, "nally, conquered the night. The dark – the source of so many of our primal fears – could now be negated at the $ick of a switch. And now, as our evenings could stay lighter for longer, people increasingly started going to bed later. This didn’t worry Edison at all. Indeed, he saw it as an unequivocally good thing.

In 1914, Edison, by now a living global icon, declared that ‘there is really no reason why men should