In which book did James Watson disparage Rosalind Franklin?

James Watson disparaged Rosalind Franklin in his memoir The Double Helix.

Published in 1968, the book recounts Watson and Francis Crick’s race to determine DNA’s structure. Watson’s portrayal of Franklin was sharply personal and dismissive, presenting her in a way that many readers felt minimized both her scientific ability and her contribution to the discovery of the double helix.

The controversy is especially significant because Franklin and her student Raymond Gosling produced crucial X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA, including the famous Photograph 51. Watson and Crick used Franklin’s unpublished findings while developing their model, although Franklin was not a co-recipient of the 1962 Nobel Prize. She had died in 1958, and Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.

The Double Helix is often contrasted with Anne Sayre’s Rosalind Franklin and DNA, which offered a more sympathetic account. Watson later acknowledged in his book that some of his initial impressions of Franklin had been wrong.