Terrible Lizard: The First Dinosaur Hunters and the Birth of a New Science

( 1 )

Overview

In 1812, Mary Anning, a poor girl from Lyme Regis, discovered the skeleton of a monster beneath the cliffs of Dorset. Her remarkable find set in motion a quest to understand the strange, buried world thought to have existed before Noah's Flood. And with that quest came another -- to take top honors in the rapidly expanding new field of dinosaur scholarship.

Terrible Lizard re-creates the bitter feud between two nineteenth-century English naturalists -- Gideon Mantell, a poor ...

See more details below
This Paperback is Not Available through BN.com
See All Options
Note: This is a bargain book and quantities are limited. Bargain books are new but may have slight markings from the publisher and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books
Sending request ...

More About This Book

Overview

In 1812, Mary Anning, a poor girl from Lyme Regis, discovered the skeleton of a monster beneath the cliffs of Dorset. Her remarkable find set in motion a quest to understand the strange, buried world thought to have existed before Noah's Flood. And with that quest came another -- to take top honors in the rapidly expanding new field of dinosaur scholarship.

Terrible Lizard re-creates the bitter feud between two nineteenth-century English naturalists -- Gideon Mantell, a poor country doctor, and Richard Owen, an eminent and well-connected anatomist -- which drove one of them to despair and ruin and secured for the other unrivaled international acclaim. Their struggle brought to light the age of dinosaurs and created a new science that would forever change man's perception of his place in the universe.

Read More Show Less

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
In this comprehensive narrative, Cadbury (Altering Eden) tells the story of the first fossilists, whose discoveries challenged the religious convictions of their day as they struggled with the implications of new science. It begins with Mary Anning, who unearthed the skeleton of a monstrous creature beneath the cliffs of Dorset in 1812; Anning would earn the respect of her male peers, but not entry into their exclusive societies. Men like the eccentric Oxford don William Buckland sought to reconcile the biblical account of Noah's flood with the fossil record, while the brilliant Georges Cuvier posited a theory of "catastrophes" to explain the progression of life while still holding true to scripture. The ambitious Richard Owen, who coined the term dinosaur and claimed credit for the discovery of dinosaurs, used his prestige to discount early evolutionary theories in favor of his own backward-looking notions about a biblical past. Unlike his rival Gideon Mantell, whose studies in geology and paleontology laid the foundation for the new science, Owen rarely set foot in a quarry or dig, but he did, according to Cadbury, mine his share of fellow scientists' works for ideas he then claimed as his own. Cadbury makes much of the rivalry between the two men, and to good effect. Her focus on Owen's injustices against Mantell, Owen's corresponding rise to fame, and Mantell's ultimately tragic end lends momentum to her narrative, culminating in the advent of the evolutionary idea with Darwin's On the Origin of Species. This is a must-read book for dinosaur enthusiasts, and for anyone who has ever wondered about the source of our present-day assumptions and unanswered questions about human origins. (June 6) Forecast: In its inevitable sales duel with Christopher McGowan's Dragon Seekers (see review p. 231), Cadbury's more three-dimensional account is sure to win hands down. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An absorbing account of the pioneer 19th-century British geologists and fossil collectors. Our hero is Gideon Mantell, of a noble family long fallen on hard times. The son of a shoemaker, Mantell was smitten with fossils at an early age. Without resources but recognized as a prodigy, he was apprenticed to a surgeon and became a doctor in London. For the rest of his life he would balance his unenthusiastic practice of medicine with a passionate devotion to fossils. Enter one Mary Anning, who supported her family by gathering fossil "trinkets" from the dangerous coastal cliffs of Dorset to sell to tourists. Her keen eye led to her recognition as a prime "fossilist" among geologists and collectors, including Mantell. One of her major finds was the fossil remains of a giant sea lizard; little by little, other huge reptilian bones were unearthed by Mary and others, but not without controversy. Mantell waited years before the eminent Baron Cuvier in Paris agreed that he had found the remains of a huge herbivorous land reptile (reversing his earlier opinion that the fossil was mammalian). But the plot thickened with the appearance of the wicked Richard Owen, who rose to pinnacles of power within the Royal Society and the Geological Society, became a social lion, and was an intimate of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. At every step of the way he did his best to discredit and ridicule Mantell, at the same time claiming some of Mantell's fossils as his own. His comeuppance (and the recognition of Mantell's true worth) was the result of both his egregious behavior and his being on the wrong (creationist) side of the evolutionary debate as the scientific tide turned to Darwinian theory. "He liedfor God and for malice," an Oxford don declared. "A bad case." A scholarly account infused with a rare drama and suspense: read it not only for the science, but to learn what happened to all these wonderful characters.
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780641565052
  • Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
  • Publication date: 6/1/1902
  • Pages: 374
  • Product dimensions: 5.72 (w) x 8.04 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Deborah Cadbury is an award-winning TV science producer for the BBC. She is also the author of The Feminization of Nature. She lives in London.

Read More Show Less

Table of Contents

Picture Credits vii
Acknowledgements ix
Part 1
1 An Ocean Turned to Stone 3
2 The World in a Pebble 33
3 Toast of Mice and Crocodiles for Tea 58
4 The Subterranean Forest 80
5 The Giant Saurians 101
Part 2
6 The Young Contender 129
7 Satan's Creatures 148
8 The Geological Age of Reptiles 165
9 Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw 182
10 Nil Desperandum 202
Part 3
11 Dinosauria 229
12 The Arch-hater 254
13 Dinomania 280
14 Nature without God? 302
Epilogue 323
Notes and Sources 327
Select Bibliography 363
Index 365
Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 1 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(1)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines
Add Recommendations
Your Name: Create a Pen Name or

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identity on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

 
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously
    If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
    Why is this product inappropriate?
    Comments (optional)