Brenda Maddox
She Sold Seashells
The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World
By Shelley Emling
Palgrave Macmillan 234pp £15.99 order from our bookshop
Remarkable Creatures
By Tracy Chevalier
HarperCollins 352pp £15.99 order from our bookshop
‘And then two come along at once.’ The eagerness to discover forgotten females of merit was bound to uncover Mary Anning. The early nineteenth-century Dorset fossil hunter was ignored by the first geologists, who profited from her astonishing finds in the cliffs of Lyme Regis. The large plesiosaur and ichthyosaur that you can see proudly displayed in the Natural History Museum were unearthed by Anning’s careful hands and reassembled to be sold in London without mention of her name. Now, the museum has a new Mary Anning Room, and it is quite fitting that two books about her appear almost simultaneously – one a thorough biography, the other a well-researched novel.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
What's the worth of being zen when the icecaps are melting and populism looms? The world's leading thinkers including @ronpurser will assess the 'mindfulness' craze at the world's largest philosophy and music festival, @HTLGIFestival, this May. Learn more: http://ow.ly/STu650ywARQ
'Feminists have been caricatured so often that it’s worth recalling the many obstacles placed in the path of women campaigning for equal rights.'
@polblonde on @helenlewis's new book about difficult women throughout history.
http://ow.ly/Is9c50ywe7G
'Too many historians sneer at our forbears; scolding them if they follow the customs of their own day ... tut-tutting if the poor things are detected having a little fun.'
From the archive, Mary Clive on medieval travellers.
http://ow.ly/yk8a50yrjSG