Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a printer & bookseller, invented the sound recording device, the phonautograph. For many years Edison's recording was thought to be the first recording. He had made the recording his tinfoil cylinder phonograph.
Scott de Martinville had recorded a French song Au Clair de la Lune
which was a 10 second clip.
In 2008 it was discovered that Martinville (25 April 1817 to 26 April 1879) had recorded a human voice on April 9, 1860. Thomas Edison patented the phonograph on Feb 19, 1878.
Posted Article in Science