Tracy Chevalier has a way of making history come alive. If you have read her earlier books, The Virgin Blue, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Falling Angels, The Lady and the Unicorn, and Burning Bright, you will probably enjoy this latest novelization of a non-fictional slice of history.
Set in Lyme Regis, England, in the mid 1800's the novel brings together two women from very different social positions. Mary Anning, born to an impoverished family, is a fossil hunter. Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster, exiled to the small town of Lyme with her two equally spinstered sisters, befriends Mary and they become unlikely partners in their quest and love of fossil remains.
In an age where women should be seen not heard, when women were counted only as useful as the dowry they could bring to a man, these two women set their sights on charting their own destinies. In real life, Mary Anning become a well-known name in the Royal Geological Society, and had many admirerers. The fame she garnered was tempered by the fact that she spent her entire life in relative poverty and was never formally acknowledged for her contributions to the understanding of our fossil history until long after her death.
Tracy Chevalier weaves a beautiful poignant story of two intelligent, curious women who tried to break the bounds of convention and be what they longed to be--fossil hunters and scientists!
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