The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black

by E. B. Hudspeth

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

This book is filled with mythical creatures that freak us out in the night. On the road. On the run. They're talked about but never really seen ... or have we seen them? Let this compendium assure you of what’s out there.

Discover a nineteenth-century Philadelphia surgeon’s lost codex and his macabre quest to prove a controversial hypothesis by any means necessary in this dark fantasy book.

Part stunning coffee table art book, part fictional biography, this gaslamp bestiary features grotesquely detailed anatomical illustrations and a chilling horror novella.

“Disturbingly lovely . . . a cabinet of curiosities, stitching history and mythology and sideshow into an altogether different creature.”—Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus

The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first part is a chilling fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from his childhood spent exhuming corpses through his medical training, his travels with carnivals, his cruel and crazed experiments, and, finally, his mysterious disappearance. The second part is Black’s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy for mythological beasts, all rendered in meticulously detailed anatomical illustrations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594746246
Publisher:	Quirk Publishing
Publication date:	05/21/2013
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	50 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

E. B. Hudspeth is an artist and author living in New Jersey. This is his first book.

Read an Excerpt

1878
The Fawn-Child

Alphonse is growing so wonderfully, like a plant in the spring. What a miracle, what a machine; I am increasingly grateful for his healthy deliverance into the world. —Dr. Spencer Black

Dr. Spencer Black’s career and aspirations changed after he paid a visit to a local carnival (the exact name of which remains unknown). Featured among the giants, acrobats, and other “marvels of nature” roaming the sideshows was an anatomy museum—an exhibit of strange medical artifacts and bizarre biological specimens.

The anatomy museums, along with cabinets of curiosities, had been popular scientific novelty collections for hundreds of years; many of these grand accumulations are still available for public view. It was this show that eclipsed Black’s previous work and inspired him to study what would become one of the most bizarre and unique pursuits of any scientist, least of all one with his talents.

These sideshows, of which I have seen many, are typically decrepit affairs leaving one with a great thirst for civility, men, and manners. The performers are often subjects of ridicule and humiliation, and they usually become patients of mine in the Ward—seeking a better life or, at the least, humanity.

The show was primarily a showcase of well-known abnormalities with a few less common defects of the human form. The collection included a skeleton of conjoined twins, fused at the skull; the monster-baby (a pig fetus in a jar); and the south pacific mermaid (a monkey and trout sewn together). all the displays were easily identified by anyone familiar with science and medicine. The exception was the fawn-child, a deceased young boy displaying an orthopedic condition that had caused his knees to bend the wrong way. The bones were misshapen, and excessive hair was present over the entire surface of the skin; there were bone or calcium growths at the top of his skull, which gave the appearance of juvenile horns. The dead child was preserved in a large alcohol-filled glass jar.

Black was convinced that the specimen held a secret to his research. He believed that the mutations were manifestations of the ancient past he had written about—evidence of a genetic code that was not completely eradicated. Some have argued that Black found answers in places where there was no need for questions. Whatever the case, the encounter with the fawn-child fueled his obsession for finding a cure for the deformation that was paramount in his work. He would never again practice conventional medicine.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Disturbingly lovely . . . The Resurrectionist is itself a cabinet of curiosities, stitching history and mythology and sideshow into an altogether different creature. Deliciously macabre and beautifully grotesque.”—Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus

“A masterful mash-up of Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges, with the added allure of gorgeous, demonically detailed drawings.  I’ve never seen anything quite like The Resurrectionist, and I doubt that I will ever forget it.”—Chase Novak, author of Breed

Editorial Reviews

Named as Part of Bustle's Scariest Book in Your State for Pennsylvania.

“Disturbingly lovely . . . The Resurrectionist is itself a cabinet of curiosities, stitching history and mythology and sideshow into an altogether different creature. Deliciously macabre and beautifully grotesque.”—Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus

“Color us captivated. This collection seems a treat for anatomy enthusiasts and creaturephiles alike."—io9

“E.B. Hudspeth’s The Resurrectionist is PFA (that’s pretty freaking amazing).”—ComicsBeat.com
 
“These detailed and fantastical drawings will intrigue any reader curious about the hypothetical anatomy of mythical creatures such as mermaids, minotaurs, and harpies. In the context of the story that precedes them, they prompt disquieting thoughts about the extreme lengths to which the fictional Dr. Black may have been willing to go to prove his assumptions, and what—or who—may have served as his models.”—ForeWord Reviews
 
“A bit of Charles Darwin and a bit of P.T. Barnum.”—Inked Magazine

“Doctors Moreau and Frankenstein should make room for a new member of their league of extraordinarily grotesque gentlemen, for there is a new mad scientist in pop culture.”—Aaron Sagers, MTV Geek

“The vivid imagery unveiled becomes the dark fantasy response to Gray's Anatomy.”—Filter Magazine

“The book is a welcome addition to any library of dark fantasy, with its beautiful portraiture and gripping description of a man’s descent into perversity.”—Publishers Weekly, “Pick of the Week”

“A masterful mash-up of Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges, with the added allure of gorgeous, demonically detailed drawings.  I’ve never seen anything quite like The Resurrectionist, and I doubt that I will ever forget it.”—Chase Novak, author of Breed

“Fans of Neil Gaiman, Hieronymus Bosch, and the Mütter Museum are sure to love [The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black] and the rest will certainly be both astounded and intrigued by what you find inside!”—The Garden Island 

From the Publisher

Color us captivated. This collection seems a treat for anatomy enthusiasts and creaturephiles alike.”

io9

Disturbingly lovely…The Resurrectionist is itself a cabinet of curiosities, stitching history and mythology and sideshow into an altogether different creature. Deliciously macabre and beautifully grotesque.”

author of The Night Circus Erin Morgenstern