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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good biography of an interesting woman at the dawn of paleontology, November 26, 2009
This review is from: The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World (Macsci) (Hardcover)
The main strength of this book is as a biography. There have been other books by people like Martin Rudwick (Worlds Before Adam) and Christopher McGowan (The Dragon Seekers) that have discussed some of Mary Anning's contributions to the historical development of paleontology and geology, but this book is a true biography that describes her life, both her inner life and her interactions with her community, which in her case was really two separate communities, the community of wealthy and well educated gentleman geologists with whom she worked, and the community of the poor working class people of Lyme Regis in which she and her family lived. The book does a particularly good job of describing how social and economic changes (and even natural disasters) in early 19th century Britain affected peoples lives in a place like Lyme Regis. It also inevitably touches on issues of gender and class in the scientific community of the early 19th century and English society in general. The author also attempts to put Anning's work into context with regard to the major intellectual developments in the fields of paleontology and geology during the first half of the 19th century and for the most part is successful in doing so. However, there are a few jarring discrepancies like when she implies that Charles Lyell never accepted evolution, when in fact by the 1860s he did, even if continued to doubt (as did Alfred Russel Wallace) that all aspects of the human mind could have been produced by a purely material process like natural selection, which is a big part of why I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5. This is a very readable book that will appeal to anyone with an interest in life in early 19th century England, the (rather interesting) history of the Lyme Regis resort community, the history of paleontology and geology, issues of class and gender in the history of science, or who just likes reading biographies of important figures in the history of science. Incidentally, I read this book on my Kindle, and the table of contents and footnote links worked very well.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
She sells sea shells ..., May 5, 2010
This review is from: The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World (Macsci) (Hardcover)
I recently read Tracy Chevalier's newest book Remarkable Creatures, the story of Mary Anning, a woman I had never heard of but is getting the attention she so richly deserved. I enjoyed Remarkable Creatures so much I was very happy to learn of this biography of her life. For anyone who doesn't normally like nonfiction I would recommend this book, it is written in a very accessible style and the story is so astonishing it reads like fiction. Emling has written a book that I found easy to read and hard to put down.
Mary Anning was born in 1799 and lived in the Lyme Regis area of England her entire life; she learned to fossil hunt as a small child, at that time a fossil was anything dug out of the ground, most of Mary's fossils finds were ammonites. Living on the very edge of poverty and barely literate she became one of the most renowned paleontologists of her time. At the age of 11 she found the first entire fossil skeleton of an ichthyosaur; a fossil that is still on display in the Natural History Museum in London. This find was the first step in the eventual theory of evolution by Darwin, who used Mary's finds and works extensively in his Origin of the Species.
The fact that Mary found this one specimen would be pretty astonishing, but she also discovered the first complete plesiosaurus, the first pterosaur (pterodactyl), a new fossil fish (Squaloraja), along with many other smaller finds. With all this she is barely known today and was often overlooked or not credited during her lifetime - most likely because she was a woman and the scientific community at that time was male dominated. Although she had many well known friends in the geological world during her lifetime she was never accorded the accolades, respect or monetary earnings these men achieved. She died at the age of 48, from breast cancer, and is largely unknown today. Although most of us have recited the `She sells sea shells on the seashore' tongue twister how many of us knew it was written about this amazing woman? A very good read and one I would recommend to anyone wishing to learn about the first baby steps of understanding evolution.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Not Well-Written Account of a Very Interesting Lady, August 20, 2011
The subject of this biography is what saves it. Mary Anning is a very interesting character and the author has done good research of her subject. Unfortunately the writing style is very lacking, there is way too much speculative language ("she might have...", "she would have...", etc.) The author's attempt at filling in the biography with historical information is to be lauded, but tends to a disjointed, unnatural flow of the book. She is also quite repetitive, especially when commenting on Mary not receiving due credit for her amazing finds. I did finish the book because of my interest in Mary Anning, but for people with similar interests I recommend looking for a different biographer. This author gets an "A" for research & effort, but fails as a writer.
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