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Remarkable Creatures

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In "Remarkable Creatures" Tracy Chevalier re-imagines the lives of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, two truly significant women in the world of science in the first half of the nineteenth century. Both were fascinated by fossils of sea-land creatures that they collected up and down the cliffs and beaches around Lyme Regis, a small town on England's southern shore and a centre for amateurs to find and for scientists to buy fossils from the locals. In easy-going fluid language, Chevalier created two believable voices as they describe their lives, their friendship and the struggle to be recognized for their knowledge.

Mary, by twenty years the younger and historically the better known, had "the eye" for discovering fossils, often hidden in nodules, under rocks or emerging from landslips common in the region. Born into a very poor family, selling fossils as "curies" (curiosities) was a financial necessity for survival; her amateur fossil-hunting father taught his young daughter the skill of finding, identifying, cleaning the "curies" and presenting them for sale. At the age of eleven or twelve, Mary came to the attention of the "gentlemen scientists" when (probably with her brother Joe) she literally "unearthed" an almost complete dinosaur skeletons: an "ichthyosaurus". It was the first of an impressive number of such extraordinary discoveries that Mary made over the years, leading, eventually, to her becoming somewhat famous in her own right, and with more and more scientists seeking her out for assistance. Nonetheless, poverty remained a constant threat for most of her life.

Interleafed with Mary's first person account of her younger life, are chapters that give Elizabeth Philpot a direct voice. An educated middle class woman, she experienced her own kind of limitations in taking charge of her life: she didn't have the money, societal standing or the looks to attract a husband, the first and foremost goal for a woman in Victorian England. Seeing the society through two different perspectives enables Chevalier to take a broader and deeper look into the society at the time, and the limitations that women were facing. Depicting the two women as close friends in some ways, driven by their fascination with fossils, but also prone to jealousy and suspicion, the author, nonetheless, stresses their differences in class and education and, related to those, opportunities. For example, it is Elizabeth who travels to London (a several-day expedition by ship) to defend Mary's reputation after her find of a "plesiosaurus" is deemed a fake by the famous French geologist, Baron Cuvier. She does it without sharing her intentions or the results of her visit with Mary. Here and in other instances, Elizabeth herself appears to be not only protective of her younger friend but also patronizing, judging Mary too uneducated and naive to be able to follow the emerging arguments on how the new scientific evidence challenges the long-held general view of life on earth. How could the finds of creatures never seen before be brought in line with God creating the earth in six days, or His intentions if He allowed creatures to become extinct long ago. While Chevalier does not delve deep into these evolving controversies among different groups of scientists and religious figures, the implied philosophical and moral questions are always present, directly or indirectly. The novel ends at a crucial moment in the friendship between Mary and Elizabeth and the later developments in their lives are briefly outlined in a "Postscript".

Chevalier's novel, like any historical fiction story that relies on the re-imagination of a mostly unknown individual, works with a creative balance between facts and artistic license to fill gaps in the historical records and/or to add colour, depth and dramatic drive to the story, or, on the other hand, to highlight certain traits or developments, leave out information that would skew the fictional character created through the novel. Personally, having read more about Mary Anning, I have some quibbles with the depiction of Mary, and her relationship to some of the gentlemen scientists...

However, "Remarkable Creatures" was not my first acquaintance with Mary Anning and her life and times. Since Anning's 200th birthday in 1999, there has been renewed interest in her work and the role her discoveries played in the emergence of the new discipline of palaeontology and the growing debate on evolution of life. Among other material, another novel is of interest here. Published more or less at the same time as Chevalier's novel, Joan Thomas's novel Curiosity, while also re-imagining Mary Anning's life, depicts here somewhat differently and comes, consequently to different conclusions. Written from an outside omniscient observer position, Thomas places less emphasis on Elizabeth Philpot and more on another historical figure of Mary's acquaintance: the geologist Henry de la Beche. In Chevalier's novel he is referred to only in passing as a friend of both Philpot and the Anning family. Thomas's characterization of Mary also suggests a stronger personality as she matured, and one who was a shrewd business woman. It will be up to readers to decide which line of presentation of Mary Anning and her work they prefer. Both books - as fiction - are valid in their historical recreation and, as such, entertaining reading. Finally, those, like myself, keen to learn more about Mary Anning, can study a recent biography by Shelley Emling's Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World. It will shed more light on the veracity of either depiction. [Friederike Knabe]

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier (Rated: C)
ISBN: 978-0-452-29672-5
Penguin Group
Published November 6, 2010
Trade Paperback, 299 pages
Reviewed by Sandra
Tracy Chevalier has done it yet again! She has managed, by her delicious choice of words, to authentically evoke a by-gone era, England in the early 1800's. Jane Austen would have recognized the small English town by the sea, Lyme Regis, where people went to recover their health or because they were forced to live in "reduced" circumstances, as was the case with Elizabeth Philpot, one of the two fascinating and strong women portrayed in the novel.
This is a story of two unlikely friends. Mary Anning is a young girl from a poor family who hunts for fossils that she sells to contribute to the family income. She has an "eye" for fossils. Elizabeth Philpot is a middle-class spinster about 20 years older than Mary who is also a fossil hunter. In fact, every day they go "upon beach" as Mary expressed it, to hunt for them. Their lives are worlds apart socially but they become fast friends because of their shared passion for fossil-hunting.
One day Mary and her brother make a spectacular find embedded in a cliff - a remarkable creature - a fossil - an 18-foot stone "monster" - a dinosaur! This complete skeleton finds its way eventually to the British Museum. Sometime later, when Mary Anning's reputation as a reliable fossil hunter is maligned, Elizabeth Philpot wants to defend her friend. Elizabeth is very much a woman of her time who has a mind of her own (Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice would have admired her) but is hampered by prevailing attitudes about women. She tells her brother that she wants to address the Geological Society (all men) on Mary's behalf. His response is "they will not let you in for you are a lady, and their charter does not allow it." Elizabeth shows what she is made of, however, and takes it upon herself to travel alone (not the done thing for single women at the time) to London to address the Geological Society. Read the book to find out if she succeeds. Mary, too, has her share of negative comments. An aristocrat condescendingly says about her, "Mary Anning is a female. She is a spare part." Do I hear feminists ranting and raving about the injustice of it all?
This novel is interesting on several levels. First of all the reader learns that there were noteworthy women paleontologists in the 1800's, even if they didn't get all the recognition they deserved; that Mary's discoveries provoked considerable controversy between scientists and religionists that continues to our day; and that Mary helped to change the way people view extinct animals, those remarkable creatures.
The book is filled with excellent descriptions. "The narrow road leads down to the shore, and then quickly turns its back on the sea and heads uphill again, as if it wants merely to glimpse the waves before fleeing." "She stood at the range, stirring what smelled like oxtail broth, while a baby squalled without conviction in a drawer in the corner."
Remarkable Creatures will delight historical novel buffs for this is a story based on real people, real events. Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot are, in their own way, remarkable creatures.

I enjoyed "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" and have also read "Burning Bright" so I decided to try this novel based on facts.
I found it a very interesting book indeed. It was easily read but also very informative. I have visited Lyme Regis, walked along sections of the crumbling cliff path and picked up a few fossils from the beaches there but I had not realised that it was a site of such scientific and historical importance. Tracy Chevalier's book opened my eyes to these scientific wonders and also gave a perceptive picture of Mary Anning's background, her life and times, as well as that of the more well-to-do Elizabeth Philpot and some of the famous geologists of the day.

Tracy Chevalier's sixth novel, Remarkable Creatures, traces the dramatized life of pioneer fossil collector Mary Anning of Lyme Regis in seaside 19th century England. Anning was an illiterate, working-class young girl whose claim to fame was being struck by lightning as a baby and having survived.

In her upcoming novel, Chevalier spreads her signature touches throughout the book. Indeed, this absorbing narrative of resilient friendship and adventures of a thirst for knowledge trails the intrepid scientific discoveries of young and rash Mary Anning and older, genteel London spinster Elizabeth Philpot, two women from diverse backgrounds and social sensibilities despite the testy current of conservative conventions and mores, and discover each other.

I remember reading to my daughter when she was small a children's book about Mary Anning and how she inspired my daughter to study dinosaurs. We would go the Royal Tyrell Museum every year to see the fossils. So, to say the least, I was excited to read this book "Remarkable Creatures" by Tracy Chevalier and I was rewarded, it is a delightful book.

Mary Anning was a working girl who had an eye for hunting out fossils and she discovered many fossils that had not been seen before, she was a pioneer and many men came to her to have her enrich their collections which they often took credit for finding. Being a female and living in the time that she did, Mary Anning's work went unrecognized as to receiving credit for the finds...the credit usually went to the males who purchased the fossils from her.

Being of a lower class, Mary was never accepted into the upper society she sold her fossils within, they did respect her, but they used her to no end to expand their own collections. This book is a wonderful book that opens your eye to a world before women were given the respect and acknowledgement they deserved especially in the field of science.

It was a treat to learn about Mary Anning's life in a fictional setting and to see her love for fossils intermixed with her need to survive by selling the fossils she devoted her life to. She is definitely a woman one can revere.

Based in the early 1800s, this is the story of Mary Anning, who was a real life person who was one of the best fossil hunters ever. She, and her friend, Elizabeth Philpot, another real life character, formed a friendship in a world dominated by men as they discovered fossils and bones of dinosaurs which their society, in that day, struggled to understand. Religious views held that all the animals that God had created must still exist so dinosaur bones were tough to explain. While I enjoyed the historical aspect of this book, I valued even more the story of the friendship of the two women. I learned a great deal from this book about the importance, and limitations, of women living in this period. I never would have survived. Overall, quite a good book that I enjoyed even more knowing the characters were, although novelized, based in fiction

This is truly a "remarkable" work of fiction. As always I am captivated by Tracy Chevalier's writing. It is beautiful, lyrical, and breathtaking. I felt transported back to the past. I was right there with Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning. I am inspired as a writer myself to pick the tools of my trade back up again. It has lead to a reawakening of my passion for travel and England. I lived there for three years during the early to mid-90s but never visited Lyme Regis. Next time I `ll be sure to go. History has never been so enticing.

I felt perfectly satisfied after reading this delightful book. It was a good story, well told. Lovely writing style. I loved that it was based on real-life persons and events. I would recommend this for a light, but informative read.

Remarkable Creatures is one part history, one part novel. It follows the known events in the life of Mary Anning, filling in the unknowns with fiction.

As history, I thought it was excellent and very interesting. I'd never heard of Mary Anning before, but in a way she was responsible for huge sections of science as we know it. Mary Anning was the woman who discovered many of the first dinosaur fossils to be recognized for what they were. As a woman, she got little if any credit for her discoveries, and the book details to some extent her struggle for legitimacy.

What I found most interesting was the impact these discoveries had on society. Dinosaurs and tthe theory of evolution are so familiar to me that I don't think twice about them. But when these fossils were first discovered, it was earth-shaking, calling into question the basic assumptions about the world that most people took for granted. It would be as if someone came along and told you that the earth is actually a ticking time bomb created by aliens as a weapon in an intergalatic war. Actually, it would be more than that, because these discoveries were made during a time when the majority of people thought the same way about things, and speculation into alternate possibilites was frowned upon. The way this book explored the societal impact was new to me and completely fascinating.

As a novel, Remarkable Creatures didn't really grab me. The friendship between Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning is supposed to be the driving force of the drama, but I wasn't really buying it. They kept talking about how important they were to each other, but I never saw and felt why that was. It was ok, but not the world's greatest friendship that the cover copy made it sound like.

"The hand of the LORD came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones." -- Ezekiel 37:1 (NKJV)

As a child, I'm sure you collected sea shells, rocks, arrowheads, or colorful flora. What if instead you had happened to grow up next to some of the best dinosaur fossils ever found? I suspect your collecting would have taken on a whole new perspective.

Mary Anning grew up in just such a place in England where fossil bones were everywhere, but people didn't know what they were . . . thinking that they were simply the remnants of dead animals of the type we see today. In those pre-Darwin days, many people interpreted the Bible to believe that there had been no extinctions. As a result, young Mary thought she was finding crocodile relics of bones turned into stone. But those eye sockets were in the wrong place to be a crocodile. What could that mean?

Remarkable Creatures once again shows Tracy Chevalier's wonderful ability to look at a fascinating historical period and to find a different slant, one that tied more directly to everyday living. In this case, the slant is about the woman who found most of the best early dinosaur fossil examples, Mary Anning, contrasting her with those who bought what she found and those who studied the fossils to determine what they were. Not satisfied with that perspective, Ms. Chevalier also introduces a second narrator, Elizabeth Philpot, who shares Mary's love of hunting for specimens, but lacks her skill. The two women are also bound by the rejection that society in general, and men in particular, direct their way as they moved forward into spinsterhood. Being of different social classes (Mary low and Elizabeth middle . . . but with few extra resources relative to their needs in either case) also provides perspective on England of the time. The story also gets into gender issues of the day.

Loosely based on important historical characters, the fleshing out in novel form makes a period that's not that long ago seem more immediate and interesting to us. I was struck that most of the biggest surprises in the story are based on real events.

I had never heard of either woman before and didn't know about these fossils, but I found the book to be a rewarding read . . . even though it would have been nice to have a bit more of a scientific perspective included. It won't cause you blood to race, but it will intrigue you to think more often about those people who are unknown to you but whose efforts and strains have made great contributions to learning.