The Curies, studying the radioactivity of minerals containing uranium and thorium, isolated from pitchblend a substance which they called radium and which they showed to possess an astonishing degree of radioactivity.

In 1903 Pierre and Marie Curie shared half of the Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel." Becquerel received the other half in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity."

After Pierre Curie's death in 1906, in 1911 Marie Curie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element."

Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link. Through a quirk in publishing history the English translation appeared in 1923 prior to the French edition as Pierre Curie by Marie Curie, Translated by Charlotte and Vernon Kellogg with an introduction by Mrs. William Brown Meloney and autobiographical notes by Marie Curie. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1923. Digital facsimile of the English translation from Google Books at this link. Marie Curie's "Autobiographical notes (pp. 153-242) appeared only in the English translation.

This very beautiful biographical work on the Curies is also an artist's book, with every page filled with artistic imagery drawn by the artist. It has been characterized as part history, part love story, part artwork. It has also been characterized as "visual non-fiction."  Most of the images in the book are cyanotypes in a wide variety of colors. Another remarkable feature of the book is that it was typeset in Eusapia LR, a typeface created by the artist.