I have to tell you that I was completely charmed by this offering from Shelly Emling. Having been a collector of fossils since early childhood you would think I would have heard of this remarkable woman but until my wife read a fictional account of Mary Anning's life a few years ago, I fear she simply had never appeared on my radar screenwhat a pity. Having discussed the fictional work with her, i.e. my wife, I became curious and wanted to know . The time period covered during Anning's life is of great interest to meearly Victorian England and between that and the fascination with fossils I have, well..First of all, this is a very well written work. The reader need to understand that the author is not a scientist, but rather a biographer. Those in search of scientific dissertations need to look elsewhere. No, this is the story of a woman from a different time, a different era but one that had a profound impact as to how we perceive the world around us to this day. Mary Anning was most certainly a woman before her time.Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis, England in 1799. Unknown to the world in general, things were about to change. Over a period of around 50to 60 years, science was finally taken from the complete church control, control it had had for years and years. Before this period, geology, biology, anatomy, medicineand the list goes on, was pretty much dictated by the church and if it was not found in the scriptures, then it was either wrong or did not existsliterally! While Mary was herself an extremely religious and devout woman, her findings helped greatly in paving the way for that remarkable group of European scholars who turned the world around. In many ways Charles Darwin owed this woman a lothe used many of her findings, incorporating them in his work.This woman, extremely poor, of a very low social cast (her father was a carpenter), and very little formal education (probably two years of schooling at the most), was at the lead of a wave of new discoveries relating to life on earth over the past several million years. Her fossil finds were absolutely remarkable and her interpretation of the data she exposed was just as remarkable.The author of course gives an account of Mary Anning's life, but that is only half of the story as to this biography. We are also given a glimpse of England during one of its most trying timesshortly after wars with Napoleon when through horrible taxation laws, the onset of the industrial revolution and an extremely rigid cast system made live absolutely miserable for many people, especially women of a lower social order. Folks, we are given a very nice social history here which is almost as fascinating as the subject herself.The author, by her own admission, has used quite a lot of speculation in this work, in particular when she records what Mary might have been thinking or what her probable actions and emotions were in any given situation. At first, I will be honest with you; this was a bit annoying. That is until I thought about it for a while. What the author has done, either consciously or unconsciously, is treated Mary Anning like one of the wonderful fossils she, Anning, discovered herself. When a new fossil is found, there is much to speculate about. The finder has a limited amount of information available (a few bits of fossilized bone in most cases), but through educated guessing, the scientist can take what is known, such as the era, climate, geographical location, etc. etc. and give a pretty good description of the creature in questionsmaybe not 100 percent accurate, but pretty good never the less.This is just what the author did with Anning. She had limited information but she took it, and through educated guesses; obviously knowing a lot about the early Victorian period and a lot about the women of that time, has given us a pretty good picture of what Mary was like, and indeed, how she thought. I ended up liking this tool and method the author used.Mary died of breast cancer at a relatively early age in 1887. During her life time , despite being know by and rubbing elbows with some of the greatest scientists in Europe, she was never really given credit for the remarkable contribution she made to sciencesimply because she was a woman. How sad.This is a pleasing read, filled with great information and is in fact quite inspirational. I do recommend this one highly.Don BlankenshipThe Ozarks FOSSIL HUNTER: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World Si te interesa la paleontología, este libro sobre Mary Anning es para ti. Una de las mujeres más influyentes en esta disciplina en un momento en que las mujeres estaban invisibilizadas. para tomarse en cuenta. FOSSIL HUNTER: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World Bought this for my wife, and she simply couldn't put it down. A sometimes sad read, but very positive & uplifting read too. A fascinating lady to discover. FOSSIL HUNTER: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World This biography is far interesting than the fictional account I had read (Chevalier) and the film I had seen. It is well written and provides the necessary social and scientific context of the time. I thoroughly enjoyed it. FOSSIL HUNTER: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World Fascinating easy to read. Everyone should know this FOSSIL HUNTER: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World
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. FOSSIL HUNTER: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World