Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove) | SCD FICTION CHE 8 DISCS | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Tracy Chevalier is acclaimed for her own brand of historical fiction. Around the turn of the 19th century on the eastern coast of England, young Mary Anning is struck by lightning. Afterwards, she discovers she possesses a rare gift-the ability to "see" and locate fossils buried deep in the cliffs near her village. Even while facing sexism and speculation about her true intentions, Mary stays true to herself and makes several finds crucial to the advancement of early paleontology.
Author Notes
Tracy Chevalier was born on October 19, 1962 in Washington, D.C. After receiving a B.A. in English from Oberlin College, she moved to England in 1984 where she worked several years as a reference book editor. Leaving her job in 1993, she began a year-long M.A in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.
She is the author of several novels including The Virgin Blue, Burning Bright, Remarkable Creatures, and The Last Runaway. Her novel Girl with a Pearl Earring was made into a film starring Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The discoveries of fossils on the beaches of Lyme Regis, England, in the 19th century rocked the world and opened the minds of scientists to the planet's unimaginable age and the extinction of species. Though attributed to men of consequence, the first remarkable finds were made by the poor working-class Anning family-and their young daughter, Mary. Chevalier wraps the history with a tale of the friendship between Mary and Elizabeth Philpot, a gentlewoman also fascinated by the creatures of stone, in a time when women were thought to be ill-suited to the work or incapable of understanding the scope of their finds. Each of these two characters tells a first-person story, and Susan Lyons gives Elizabeth Philpot the diction, reserve, subdued tones, and poise expected of a gentlewoman and shades her with idiosyncrasies, passions, and palpable loneliness. Charlotte Parry is convincing as a callow, coarse Mary Anning, and listeners will witness her gradual maturing and refinement as the story unfolds. The quality audio production enhances Chevalier's picturesque historical novel. A Dutton hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 28). (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Guardian Review
"New life is formed from extinction and death," wrote Darwin in 1838, in a private notebook. Some 20 years later, he based The Origin of Species on the fact that fossils document a continuum of life forms, demonstrating that millions of species died out as others took their place. A generation earlier, however, when Tracy Chevalier's rough-petticoated heroine was pulling out of cliffs in Lyme Regis the evidence that would go into this insight, nobody wanted to believe that God did not, as one of Chevalier's characters puts it, "plan out what He would do with all of the animals He created". It is a stunning story, compassionately reimagined. In real life Chevalier's heroine, Mary Anning, was the greatest fossil-hunter ever. Her father was a not-very-successful cabinet-maker whom Jane Austen once asked to mend a chest, but his estimate was too high. Austen looked elsewhere, never knowing that the artisan she briefly met was teaching his gifted daughter to find the "curies", the fossil curiosities sold to Lyme tourists like herself. As a young child, Mary survived a lightning strike, which people said made her strange and extra bright. She had an uncanny gift for finding fossils, was the origin of the tongue-twister "She Sells Sea Shells on the Sea Shore", and in 1811 when she was 12 (Darwin was two) her first big find, a "crocodile" later named ichthyosaurus, rocked the scientific world. She unearthed a plesiosaurus in 1823, a pterodactyl in 1828 and a squaloraja (a transition fish, between sharks and rays) in 1829. Scientists were knocking at Mary's impoverished family's door from 1811. Even before Richard Owen coined the word dinosaur, "terrible lizard", in 1824, giant fossils were a hot scientific topic. Several male scientists owed their achievements to Mary's finds. She taught herself geology and anatomy and worked out, with the Oxford geologist William Buckland, that lumps known as bezoar stones were actually dinosaur faeces. To raise money for Mary, one patron, Colonel Birch, auctioned the fossils she helped him find. Later the French scientist Cuvier accused Mary of fraud, a charge she successfully rebutted. She died unmarried at 47, with the respect of the international scientific community. Chevalier, however, has two heroines, two voices. Mary is the young one, the uneducated girl with lightning in her bones, who reacts to everything by instinct. It is the older woman whose voice dominates the novel. Elizabeth Philpot was also a historical character (her fossil fish collection ended up in Oxford) and her situation at the start of Chevalier's novel is familiar from Austen: that of a middle-class spinster sent away by a married brother to live more cheaply elsewhere. Elizabeth settles at Lyme, where she begins collecting fossils. The ways in which Mary and Elizabeth regard each other over the years allows the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring to do what she excels at: reveal slowly, in meticulous period detail, not one but two women being looked at. When Elizabeth first meets her, Mary is an eager, illiterate child. Elizabeth teaches her to read; Mary teaches Elizabeth how to find, to clean and, as Chevalier represents it, to empathise with fossils. Educated, analytical Elizabeth, the voice of social and intellectual context, is all too aware that society is critical. Provincial Regency life finds her, Mary, fossils and their friendship provokingly odd. Then their friendship is riven by a man - or by Mary's feelings for one. Elizabeth warns Mary: Birch will happily let her find him fossils but never dream of marrying her. Mockingly, Mary accuses Elizabeth of jealousy. There is a terrible breach during the years of Mary's greatest finds. But when Cuvier accuses Mary of fraud, Elizabeth sallies out to save her reputation. It is a tale of conventions cracking: conventions, most obviously, of piety. Dinosaurs are huge but their implications huger still. When Elizabeth points out differences between Mary's "crocodile" and modern crocodiles, the local landowner explains: "It's simple, Miss Philpot. This is one of God's early models and He decided to give subsequent ones smaller eyes." Elizabeth realises that most people "would rather call this animal a crocodile than consider the alternative: that it was the body of a creature that no longer existed in this world". God apart, the conventions shaken by these women, simply by who they are and what they are interested in, are the even more rigid ones of class and gender. Giant marine reptiles are not the only remarkable creatures in this book. Chevalier turns a warming spotlight on a friendship cemented by shared obsession and mutual respect across profound class fissures; a friendship between two women who were indirectly responsible for several male careers and ultimately (partially, very indirectly) for Darwin's insights. She also gives it what Darwin himself considered mandatory in a novel, a happy ending - or happy enough. Ruth Padel's Darwin: A Life in Poems is published by Chatto & Windus. Caption: article-chevalier.1 Scientists were knocking at [Mary Anning]'s impoverished family's door from 1811. Even before Richard Owen coined the word dinosaur, "terrible lizard", in 1824, giant fossils were a hot scientific topic. Several male scientists owed their achievements to Mary's finds. She taught herself geology and anatomy and worked out, with the Oxford geologist William Buckland, that lumps known as bezoar stones were actually dinosaur faeces. To raise money for Mary, one patron, Colonel Birch, auctioned the fossils she helped him find. Later the French scientist Cuvier accused Mary of fraud, a charge she successfully rebutted. She died unmarried at 47, with the respect of the international scientific community. The ways in which Mary and [Elizabeth Philpot] regard each other over the years allows the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring to do what she excels at: reveal slowly, in meticulous period detail, not one but two women being looked at. When Elizabeth first meets her, Mary is an eager, illiterate child. Elizabeth teaches her to read; Mary teaches Elizabeth how to find, to clean and, as [Tracy Chevalier] represents it, to empathise with fossils. Educated, analytical Elizabeth, the voice of social and intellectual context, is all too aware that society is critical. Provincial Regency life finds her, Mary, fossils and their friendship provokingly odd. Then their friendship is riven by a man - or by Mary's feelings for one. - Ruth Padel.
Booklist Review
As she did with Vermeer's painting in The Girl with the Pearl Earring (2000) and with tapestry making in The Lady and the Unicorn (2004), Chevalier again immerses readers in a world far removed from their own. The remarkable creatures of the title are both the fossils found on the rocky beaches of Lyme Regis in England during the 1800s and the fossil hunters, working-class Mary Anning and middle-class spinster Elizabeth Philpot, a London exile. Born with a keen eye and a love for the curies she so adeptly spots on the beach, Mary relies on her ability to help support the family, selling her treasures to tourists and townsfolk. Elizabeth Philpot, relegated, along with her two sisters, to Lyme Regis by her brother, who has recently married, brings an educated eye to Mary's finds, schooling her on the scientific names and anatomy of the fossils. When Mary finds an unusual skeleton unlike anything that has ever been discovered before, her work is brought to the attention of the scientific community, but what should be a heady achievement becomes a struggle for recognition from the male-dominated profession, one that ultimately pits the two women against each other. A perfect choice for book clubs and for Austen fans, this many-faceted novel, based on a true story, has a lot to say about women's friendships and class and social prejudice.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2009 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In early 1800s England, unmarried women of the upper classes were often relegated to the fringes of society, where they could find a polite way to spend their days; those of the lower classes had even fewer options. This work, based on a true story, portrays two women from these diverse backgrounds who share a fascination with fossils. Mary Anning is an impoverished girl with a gift for finding prehistoric skeletons along the coast, which also interest genteel spinster Elizabeth Philpot. She recognizes Mary's talent as she also understands the enormous implications of the specimens uncovered, for this was before Darwin, when the concept of extinction was unknown, and it was blasphemous to consider that some of God's creatures may have been flawed. Over time, both women strive for scientific credibility, love, and financial stability, with varying degrees of success. Verdict Superbly creating a unique setting, as she did in The Girl with a Pearl Earring, Chevalier captures the atmosphere of a chilly, blustery coast and an oppressive social hierarchy in real Dickensian fashion. Readers of historical fiction will enjoy this fascinating tale of rustic paleontology. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/09.]-Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
