Notes by the author, Andrew Hodges

Turing's rehabilitation from over a quarter-century's embarrassed silence was largely the result of Andrew Hodges's superb biography, Alan Turing: the Enigma (1983; reissued with a new introduction in 2012). Hodges examined available primary sources and interviewed surviving witnesses to elucidate Turing's multiple dimensions. A mathematician, Hodges ably explained Turing's intellectual accomplishments with insight, and situated them within their wider historical contexts. He also empathetically explored the centrality of Turing's sexual identity to his thought and life in a persuasive rather than reductive way...

One welcome output of the Turing industry is a reissue of the definitive biography by Andrew Hodges. In the complex process of Turing’s re-evaluation, Hodges stands out as both agent and chronicler: his concluding 'author's note' (pp. 530-540) is an impressive historiographic essay, critically surveying Turing's reputation up to the time of the book's first publication in 1983. As in the previous reissue of 1992, the original text appears unrevised with a new preface; where the emphasis in 1992 was on presenting newly discovered sources, however, Hodges here works mainly to assimilate the scope and consequences of his own success. To insist on appreciating Turing as 'a figure in world history' (p. 530) might have seemed grandiose in 1983; today, the position is mainstream...

Andrew Hodges' 1983 book "Alan Turing: The Enigma," is the indispensable guide to Turing's life and work and one of the finest biographies of a scientific genius ever written.

On the face of it, a richly detailed 500-page biography of a mathematical genius and analysis of his ideas, might seem a daunting proposition. But fellow mathematician and author Hodges has acutely clear and often extremely moving insight into the humanity behind the leaping genius that helped to crack the Germans' Enigma codes during World War II and bring about the dawn of the computer age...

Then suddenly, in 1983, Andrew Hodges published his biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma, which told it all. It finally brought Turing the man into sharp focus... He got the full story and told it carefully, intimately, and well. And he brings it up-to-date in the Centenary Edition. It's still the Bible of Turing biography.

Two decades ago, a mathematician named Andrew Hodges published 'Alan Turing: The Enigma', which is one of the finest scientific biographies ever written, and has remained an essential resource for all subsequent accounts of Turing's life.

Listed as one of the essential 50 books of all time in the The Guardian,  1 June 2002.

I was fortunate to have available Andrew Hodges's poignant, beautifully written biography of Turing.

One of the finest scientific biographies I've ever read: authoritative, superbly researched, deeply sympathetic and beautifully told.

A captivating, compassionate portrait of a first-rate scientist who gave so much to a world that in the end cruelly rejected him. Perceptive and absorbing, Andrew Hodges's book is scientific biography at its best.

'I wish I'd written,' by Ray Monk

There are many things I wish I could write, but realise I never will: poetry, drama, travelogues, situation comedies, to mention but a few. But a book I wish I had written, and one that was a big inspiration for the things I have written, is Alan Turing: the Enigma  by Andrew Hodges. I read it when it first came out in 1983, and immediately formed the ambition to write something similar about Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Hodges's great achievement was to link the work and life of a scientist in a way that had scarcely been attempted before, and in a manner that avoided many of the obvious pitfalls. Hodges, like Turing, is a mathematician, and was thus able to understand and describe Turing's pioneering work in mathematical logic — and his momentously important codebreaking work during the war — at a depth that would have been beyond most biographers. Like Turing also, Hodges is gay, and his description of Turing's prosecution in 1952 for 'gross indecency' and the tragic events leading up to it, is written with great empathy and an entirely appropriate indignation.

It is an almost perfect match of biographer and subject, and, though Hodges is determined, as he puts it, 'to overcome the twentieth-century chasm between scientific thought and human life,' he has the sensitivity to realise that the events of a person's life can never 'explain' the greatness of their thought. Rather than attempt such an explanation, he integrates the work with the life, allowing the reader to see the connections between the two. In doing so, he created not only a great book, but a whole new kind of biographical writing.

Desert Island Book Choice by Margaret Boden

My choice is the biography Alan Turing...  by Andrew Hodges. This superb biography satisfies many of the intellectual senses. Written by a mathematician, it describes in plain language Turing's work on the foundations of computer science and how he broke the Germans' Enigma code in the Second World War. The subtle depiction of class rivalries, personal relationships, and Turing's tragic end are worthy of a novel. But this was a real person. Hodges describes the man, and the science that fascinated him — which once saved, and still influences, our lives.

This book is a first-rate presentation of the life of a first-rate scientific mind... it is hard to imagine a more thoughtful and warm biography than this one.

It is a first-class contribution to history and an exemplary work of biography.

Andrew Hodges's book is of exemplary scholarship and sympathy. Intimate, perceptive and insightful, it's also the most readable biography I've picked up in some time.

... the first serious synthesis of mathematical and gay liberationist insight... a new standard in writing about gay people in the past. It is the moving story of a man with a brilliant mind, who refused to deny his feelings, in a search to understand — and live — true life.

This pre-publication commendation appeared on the cover of the original UK edition.
Angus Wilson knew Alan Turing, who eagerly read his 1952 novel Hemlock and After.