Remarkable Creatures - Softcover

Chevalier, Tracy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007178387 ISBN 13: 9780007178384

Publisher: Harper, 2010

Synopsis

The stunning novel of female friendship, forbidden love and evolution from the bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring. In the early nineteenth century, a windswept beach along the English coast brims with fossils for those with the eye! From the moment she's struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is different. Her discovery of strange fossilized creatures in the cliffs of Lyme Regis sets the world alight. But Mary must face powerful prejudice from a male scientific establishment, not to mention vicious gossip and the heartbreak of forbidden love. Then -- in prickly, clever Elizabeth Philpot, a fossil-obsessed middle-class spinster -- she finds a champion, and a rival. Despite their differences in class and age, Mary and Elizabeth's loyalty and passion for the truth must win out. Remarkable Creatures is a stunning novel of how one woman's gift transcends class and gender to lead to some of the most important discoveries of the nineteenth century. Above all, it is a revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship.

About this title

About the Author:

Tracy Chevalier is the author of five previous novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Virgin Blue, Falling Angels, The Lady and the Unicorn and Burning Bright. Born in Washington, DC, she moved to London in 1984, where she lives with her husband and son. She has a website at www.tchevalier.com.

From AudioFile:

Chevalier plays to all her strengths in this fascinating fact-based novel about Mary Anning, a working-class girl in early nineteenth-century Lyme Regis who finds dinosaurs fossils in the cliffs along the beach. Elizabeth Philpot, who could have stepped straight out of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, becomes Mary's friend and champion when her discoveries put her at odds with all-male, class-bound scientific communities that believe, at worst, that the world was created only 6,000 years ago and could not include extinct creatures, and, at best, that women cannot do science. Charlotte Parry creates a gutsy but vulnerable Mary while Susan Lyons gives us a proper and ladylike Elizabeth. Together, they create an original and moving duet of unlikely friendship in this impeccable production. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0007178387
• ISBN 13: 9780007178384
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352