Friends of the Harrison Public Library Present The Millennium Book Club to discuss "Remarkable Creatures" by Tracy Chevalier

SUMMARY: 

As she did with Vermeer's painting in The Girl with the Pearl Earring (2000) and with tapestry making in The Lady and the Unicorn (2004), Chevalier again immerses readers in a world far removed from their own. The remarkable creatures of the title are both the fossils found on the rocky beaches of Lyme Regis in England during the 1800s and the fossil hunters, working-class Mary Anning and middle-class spinster Elizabeth Philpot, a London exile. Born with a keen eye and a love for the curies she so adeptly spots on the beach, Mary relies on her ability to help support the family, selling her treasures to tourists and townsfolk. Elizabeth Philpot, relegated, along with her two sisters, to Lyme Regis by her brother, who has recently married, brings an educated eye to Mary's finds, schooling her on the scientific names and anatomy of the fossils. When Mary finds an unusual skeleton unlike anything that has ever been discovered before, her work is brought to the attention of the scientific community, but what should be a heady achievement becomes a struggle for recognition from the male-dominated profession, one that ultimately pits the two women against each other. Copyright 2009 Booklist