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Remarkable Creatures / Tracy Chevalier

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The best-selling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring brings us the story of Mary Anning, an early nineteenth century amateur paleontologist and discoverer of fossils.

From her base in Lyme Regis in what is now known as Southern England’s Jurassic Coast, Mary Anning discovered amazingly complete fossilized skeletons of ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and prehistoric fish. Because she uncovered fossilized impressions of “monsters” of which people understood very little (this was years before Darwin’s On the Origin of Species or much understanding of geologic eras and extinctions), her discoveries challenged the prevailing view of God’s creation and plan, and caused her to be regarded with suspicion. (Fast forward 200 years to certain school districts in the US.)

Mary Anning’s story is all the more remarkable because she was an unschooled woman from the lower class operating in a field dominated by educated men. A fascinating novel, though the characters, perhaps constrained by the mores of the time, seemed a little fossilized themselves. Click here for a video clip on Remarkable Creatures with the author.

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