Jurassic Mary Mary Anning And The Primeval Monsters

Jurassic Mary

2006-04-20 Biography & Autobiography

Mary Anning and the Primeval Monsters

Author: Patricia Pierce

Publisher: The History Press

ISBN: 0752495690

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 256

The life of one of the pioneers of the emerging science of geology whose discoveries were often credited in her time to others, due to her gender and classMary Anning (1799-1847) was one of the pioneers of the emerging science of geology, and the first woman palaeontologist to make important discoveries. When she was just 12, she discovered the first whole ichthyosaurus skeleton; later, aged 22, she found the first whole skeleton of a plesiosaurus, and this find gained her international fame. She was unusual then—as she would be now—in being a woman geologist, and she was also a curiosity in being both provincial and lower class when science was dominated by upper class London gentlemen. During her lifetime she won the respect of contemporary scientists, receiving an annuity from the British Association for the Advancement of Science during the last decade of her life. Upon her death, Dickens wrote "the carpenter's daughter has won a name for herself, and deserved to win it." After her death, however, scientists wrote her out of their books, crediting instead the naturalists who had bought her specimens with her discoveries. It was inconceivable to them that an uneducated woman had produced such astonishing work. This biography rescues the now little-known life of this extraordinary woman from undeserved obscurity to reveal her full and fascinating life.

Time Matters

2010-04-09 Science

Geology's Legacy to Scientific Thought

Author: Michael Leddra

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

ISBN: 9781444323269

Category: Science

Page: 288

Time Matters provides an invaluable insight into the background behind some of the key concepts we use in Earth science today. It shows the historical context in which these ideas were developed, the important contributions of individual scientists and thinkers, and how these ideas continue to shape our view of science and the world in which we live. The book covers subjects such as the age of the earth, catastrophism vs uniformitarianism, evolution vs creationism, plutonism vs neptunism, continental drift and plate tectonics. It explores the people involved, their ideas and the scientific and religious power politics involved in the development. It is effectively partly a review of the way in which science works or does not work. The text includes questions and comment boxes which help the reader to appreciate/understand the ideas and concepts that have been included and their problems, strengths or weaknesses. Accessible introduction – does not assume prior knowledge Teaches scientific thought – particularly the use of evidence Topic based – uses a set of key geological theories This book is written for anyone with an interest in geology and the history of science, but will be particularly valuable to university or high-school students beginning a study of earth science for the first time.

The Fossil Hunter

2009-10-13 Biography & Autobiography

Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World

Author: Shelley Emling

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

ISBN: 9780230100978

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 256

At a time when women were excluded from science, a young girl made a discovery that marked the birth of paleontology and continues to feed the debate about evolution to this day. Mary Anning was only twelve years old when, in 1811, she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton--of an ichthyosaur--while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis, England. Until Mary's incredible discovery, it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct. The child of a poor family, Mary became a fossil hunter, inspiring the tongue-twister, "She Sells Sea Shells by the Seashore." She attracted the attention of fossil collectors and eventually the scientific world. Once news of the fossils reached the halls of academia, it became impossible to ignore the truth. Mary's peculiar finds helped lay the groundwork for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, laid out in his On the Origin of Species. Darwin drew on Mary's fossilized creatures as irrefutable evidence that life in the past was nothing like life in the present. A story worthy of Dickens, The Fossil Hunter chronicles the life of this young girl, with dirt under her fingernails and not a shilling to buy dinner, who became a world-renowned paleontologist. Dickens himself said of Mary: "The carpenter's daughter has won a name for herself, and deserved to win it." Here at last, Shelley Emling returns Mary Anning, of whom Stephen J. Gould remarked, is "probably the most important unsung (or inadequately sung) collecting force in the history of paleontology," to her deserved place in history.

Remarkable Creatures

2010-01-05 Biography & Autobiography

A Novel

Author: Tracy Chevalier

Publisher: Penguin

ISBN: 1101152451

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 320

A voyage of discovery, two remarkable women, and an extraordinary time and place enrich this New York Times bestselling novel by Tracy Chevalier, author of At the Edge of the Orchard and Girl With a Pearl Earring. On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary Anning learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight. After enduring bitter cold, thunderstorms, and landslips, her challenges only grow when she falls in love with an impossible man. Mary soon finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who shares her passion for scouring the beaches. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy, but ultimately turns out to be their greatest asset. Remarkable Creatures is a stunning historical novel that follows the story of two extraordinary 19th century fossil hunters who changed the scientific world forever.

Mary Anning's Curiosity

2017-05-01 Juvenile Fiction

Author: Monica Kulling

Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd

ISBN: 1554988993

Category: Juvenile Fiction

Page: 120

Mary Anning, considered the world’s greatest fossilist, discovered her first big find at the age of twelve. This novel is an imaginative re-creation of her childhood in early nineteenth-century Lyme Regis. Mary was born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, England, to a poor family. She and her older brother were the only two of ten children to survive. Her father, a carpenter and part-time fossil hunter, taught his children to look for fossils. When her father injured himself and was unable to work, Mary quit school and took up fossil hunting full-time to help support her family, a task that became even more important when her father died, leaving the Annings in debt. At the age of twelve, Mary, with her older brother Joe, found what they believed to be the skeleton of a gigantic crocodile, the Great Croc of the legends. Between dodging her rival fossil hunter, the Curiman, and the sheer work of carefully digging out the fossil, Mary took almost a year to excavate what would later be termed the Ichthyosaurus. Mary Anning may have been uneducated, poor and a woman, but her life’s work of fossil hunting led her to make many discoveries that influenced our understanding of prehistoric creatures and the age of the Earth. In 2010, Mary was named among the ten British women who have most influenced the history of science. Charles Darwin even cited Mary’s fossilized creatures as evidence in his book On the Origin of Species. In this triumphant novel about scientific discovery, Monica Kulling brings Mary Anning and her world to life for young readers.

Remarkable Creatures

2010-01-05 Biography & Autobiography

A Novel

Author: Tracy Chevalier

Publisher: Penguin

ISBN: 1101152451

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 320

Stone Girl, Bone Girl

1999 Juvenile Nonfiction

The Story of Mary Anning

Author: Laurence Anholt

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

ISBN: 9780531301487

Category: Juvenile Nonfiction

Page: 32

A brief biography of the English girl whose discovery of an Ichthyosaurus skeleton in 1811 when she was twelve led to a life-long interest in fossils and other important discoveries.

Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Saurians

2010-01-01 Science

A Historical Perspective

Author: Richard Moody

Publisher: Geological Society of London

ISBN: 9781862393110

Category: Science

Page: 394

The discovery of dinosaurs and other large extinct saurians - a term under which the Victorians commonly lumped ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and their kin - makes exciting reading and has caught the attention of palaeontologists, historians of science and the general public alike. The papers in this collection go beyond the familiar tales about famous fossil hunters and focus on relatively little-known episodes in the discovery and interpretation (from both a scientific and an artistic point of view) of dinosaurs and other inhabitants of the Mesozoic world. They cover a long time span, from the beginnings of modern scientific palaeontology in the 1700s to the present, and deal with many parts of the world, from the Yorkshire coast to Central India, from Bavaria to the Sahara. The characters in these stories include professional palaeontologists and geologists (some of them well-known, others quite obscure), explorers, amateur fossil collectors, and artists, linked together by their interest in Mesozoic creatures.

Reflecting on Darwin

2016-04-08 Literary Criticism

Author: Eckart Voigts,Barbara Schaff

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 1317069676

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 248

Taking up the historical evolution of Darwin and his theories and the cultural responses they have inspired, Reflecting on Darwin poses the following questions: 'How are the apparatuses in the mid-nineteenth century and at the turn of the twenty-first century interconnected with bio-scientific paradigms in art, literature, culture and science?' 'How are naturalism, determinism and Darwinism - the eugenics of the nineteenth century and the genetic coding of the twentieth century - positioned, embodied and staged in various media configurations and media genres?' and 'How have particular media apparatuses formed, displaced or stabilized the various concepts of humankind in the framework of evolutionary theory?' Ranging from the early circulation of Darwin’s ideas to the present, this interdisciplinary collection pays particular attention to Darwin’s postmillennial reception. Beginning with an overview of the historical development of contemporary ecological and ethical fears, Reflecting on Darwin then turns to Darwin’s influence on contemporary media, neo-Victorian literature and culture, science fiction literature and film, and contemporary theory. In examining the plurality of ways in which Darwin has been rewritten and reappropriated, this unique volume both mirrors and inspects the complexity of recent debates in Victorian and neo-Victorian studies.

The Dinosaur Artist

2018-09-11 Science

Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth¿s Ultimate Trophy

Author: Paige Williams

Publisher: Hachette Books

ISBN: 0316382507

Category: Science

Page: 432

New Yorker magazine staff writer Paige Williams explores the riveting and perilous world of fossil collectors in this "tremendous" (David Grann) true tale of one Florida man's attempt to sell a dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia--"a triumphant book" (Publishers Weekly) that is "steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and politics" (Rebecca Skloot). In 2012, a New York auction catalogue boasted an unusual offering: "a superb Tyrannosaurus skeleton." In fact, Lot 49135 consisted of a nearly complete T. bataar, a close cousin to the most famous animal that ever lived. The fossils now on display in a Manhattan event space had been unearthed in Mongolia, more than 6,000 miles away. At eight-feet high and 24 feet long, the specimen was spectacular, and when the gavel sounded the winning bid was over $1 million. Eric Prokopi, a thirty-eight-year-old Floridian, was the man who had brought this extraordinary skeleton to market. A onetime swimmer who spent his teenage years diving for shark teeth, Prokopi's singular obsession with fossils fueled a thriving business hunting, preparing, and selling specimens, to clients ranging from natural history museums to avid private collectors like actor Leonardo DiCaprio. But there was a problem. This time, facing financial strain, had Prokopi gone too far? As the T. bataar went to auction, a network of paleontologists alerted the government of Mongolia to the eye-catching lot. As an international custody battle ensued, Prokopi watched as his own world unraveled. In the tradition of The Orchid Thief, The Dinosaur Artist is a stunning work of narrative journalism about humans' relationship with natural history and a seemingly intractable conflict between science and commerce. A story that stretches from Florida's Land O' Lakes to the Gobi Desert, The Dinosaur Artist illuminates the history of fossil collecting--a murky, sometimes risky business, populated by eccentrics and obsessives, where the lines between poacher and hunter, collector and smuggler, enthusiast and opportunist, can easily blur. In her first book, Paige Williams has given readers an irresistible story that spans continents, cultures, and millennia as she examines the question of who, ultimately, owns the past.

The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World (Text Only Edition)

2012-05-31 Science

Author: Deborah Cadbury

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

ISBN: 0007388942

Category: Science

Page: 384

The story of two nineteenth-century scientists who revealed one of the most significant and exciting events in the natural history of this planet: the existence of dinosaurs.

Science and Religion in Neo-Victorian Novels

2013-04-17 Literary Criticism

Eye of the Ichthyosaur

Author: John Glendening

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 1134088345

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 272

Criticism about the neo-Victorian novel — a genre of historical fiction that re-imagines aspects of the Victorian world from present-day perspectives — has expanded rapidly in the last fifteen years but given little attention to the engagement between science and religion. Of great interest to Victorians, this subject often appears in neo-Victorian novels including those by such well-known authors as John Fowles, A. S. Byatt, Graham Swift, and Mathew Kneale. This book discusses novels in which nineteenth-century science, including geology, paleontology, and evolutionary theory, interacts with religion through accommodations, conflicts, and crises of faith. In general, these texts abandon conventional religion but retain the ethical connectedness and celebration of life associated with spirituality at its best. Registering the growth of nineteenth-century secularism and drawing on aspects of the romantic tradition and ecological thinking, they honor the natural world without imagining that it exists for humans or functions in reference to human values. In particular, they enact a form of wonderment: the capacity of the mind to make sense of, creatively adapt, and enjoy the world out of which it has evolved — in short, to endow it with meaning. Protagonists who come to experience reality in this expansive way release themselves from self-anxiety and alienation. In this book, Glendening shows how, by intermixing past and present, fact and fiction, neo-Victorian narratives, with a few instructive exceptions, manifest this pattern.

And I'd Do It Again

2017-02-09 Biography & Autobiography

Author: Aimée Crocker

Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd

ISBN: 1784979848

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 336

With the world at her feet and Californian railroad fortunes in her purse, Aimée had a tale or two to tell. Here, she boldly delivers her hilarious memoirs of escaping headhunters in Borneo, avoiding poisoning in Hong Kong and outwitting murder in Shanghai. Not remotely cowered by her skirmishes with sin, shame or vice, Aimée celebrates her quintet of unfortunate husbands including a Russian prince almost forty years her junior and King Kalakaua of Hawaii, emboldened by her forcefulness to hold sway over the faint of heart. Aimée was a woman of means, not always a lady and never what you might call 'proper'. In this laugh-out-loud story of her life, she recounts her adventures with flair, invincibility and unapologetic gusto.

Earth Sciences History

2006 Earth sciences

Journal of the History of the Earth Sciences Society

Author: N.A

Publisher: N.A

ISBN: N.A

Category: Earth sciences

Page: N.A

The French Lieutenant's Woman

2012-06-25 Fiction

Author: John Fowles

Publisher: Little, Brown

ISBN: 0316230138

Category: Fiction

Page: 480

Perhaps the most beloved of John Fowles's internationally bestselling works, The French Lieutenant's Woman is a feat of seductive storytelling that effectively invents anew the Victorian novel. "Filled with enchanting mysteries and magically erotic possibilities" (New York Times), the novel inspired the hugely successful 1981 film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons and is today universally regarded as a modern classic.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

2012-05-15 Science

Author: Bill Bryson

Publisher: Anchor Canada

ISBN: 0385674503

Category: Science

Page: 560

One of the world’s most beloved and bestselling writers takes his ultimate journey -- into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer. In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. In In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand -- and, if possible, answer -- the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining. From the Hardcover edition.

Pearls before Poppies

2018-03-16 History

The Story of the Red Cross Pearls

Author: Rachel Trethewey

Publisher: The History Press

ISBN: 0750987170

Category: History

Page: 288

In February 1918, when the First World War was still being bitterly fought, prominent society member Lady Northcliffe conceived an idea to help raise funds for the British Red Cross. Using her husband’s newspapers, The Times and the Daily Mail, she ran a campaign to collect enough pearls to create a necklace, intending to raffle the piece to raise money. The campaign captured the public’s imagination. Over the next nine months nearly 4,000 pearls poured in from around the world. Pearls were donated in tribute to lost brothers, husbands and sons, and groups of women came together to contribute one pearl on behalf of their communities. Those donated ranged from priceless heirlooms –one had survived the sinking of the Titanic – to imperfect yet treasured trinkets. Working with Christie’s and the International Fundraising Committee of the British Red Cross, author Rachel Trethewey expertly weaves the touching story of a generation of women who gave what they had to aid the war effort and commemorate their losses.

Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past, 1830-1980

2017-03-15 Art

Author: Zoe Lescaze

Publisher: Taschen

ISBN: 9783836555111

Category: Art

Page: 286

Dinosaurs Are Forever A pictorial history of paleoart It was 1830 when an English scientist named Henry De la Beche painted the first piece of paleoart, a dazzling, deliciously macabre vision of prehistoric reptiles battling underwater. Since then, artists the world over have conjured up visions of dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, cavemen, and other creatures, shaping our understanding of the primeval past through their exhilarating images. In this unprecedented new book, writer Zo� Lescaze and artist Walton Ford present the astonishing history of paleoart from 1830 to 1990. These are not cave paintings produced thousands of years ago, but modern visions of the prehistory: stunning paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, mosaics, and murals that mingle scientific fact with unbridled fantasy. The collection provides an in-depth look at this neglected niche of art history, and shows the artists charged with imagining these extinct creatures projected their own aesthetic whims onto prehistory, rendering the primordial past with dashes of Romanticism, Impressionism, Japonisme, Fauvism, and Art Nouveau, among other influences. With incisive essays from Lescaze, a preface by Ford, five fold-outs, and dozens of details, the book showcases a stunning collection of artworks plucked from major natural history museums, obscure archives, and private collections, and includes new photography of key works, including Charles R. Knight's seminal dinosaur paintings in Chicago and little-known masterpieces such as A. M. Belashova's monumental mosaic in Moscow. From the fearsome to the fantastical, Paleoart: Visions of a Prehistoric Past 1830-1990 is a celebration of prehistoric animals in art, and a novel chance to understand our favorite extinct beasts through a new art historical lens.