Remarkable Creatures

by Tracy Chevalier

Overview

A voyage of discovery, two remarkable women, and an extraordinary time and place enrich this New York Times bestselling novel by Tracy Chevalier, author of At the Edge of the Orchard and Girl With a Pearl Earring.

On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary Anning learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight. After enduring bitter cold, thunderstorms, and landslips, her challenges only grow when she falls in love with an impossible man.

Mary soon finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who shares her passion for scouring the beaches. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy, but ultimately turns out to be their greatest asset.

Remarkable Creatures is a stunning historical novel that follows the story of two extraordinary 19th century fossil hunters who changed the scientific world forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780452296725
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/26/2010
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

"I was born and grew up in Washington, DC. After getting a BA in English from Oberlin College (Ohio), I moved to London, England in 1984. I intended to stay 6 months; I’m still here.

"As a kid I’d often said I wanted to be a writer because I loved books and wanted to be associated with them. I wrote the odd story in high school, but it was only in my twenties that I started writing ‘real’ stories, at night and on weekends. Sometimes I wrote a story in a couple evenings; other times it took me a whole year to complete one.

"Once I took a night class in creative writing, and a story I’d written for it was published in a London-based magazine called Fiction. I was thrilled, even though the magazine folded 4 months later.

I worked as a reference book editor for several years until 1993 when I left my job and did a year-long MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (England). My tutors were the English novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. For the first time in my life I was expected to write every day, and I found I liked it. I also finally had an idea I considered ‘big’ enough to fill a novel. I began The Virgin Blue during that year, and continued it once the course was over, juggling writing with freelance editing.

"An agent is essential to getting published. I found my agent Jonny Geller through dumb luck and good timing. A friend from the MA course had just signed on with him and I sent my manuscript of The Virgin Blue mentioning my friend’s name. Jonny was just starting as an agent and needed me as much as I needed him. Since then he’s become a highly respected agent in the UK and I’ve gone along for the ride."

Hometown:

London, England

Date of Birth:

October 19, 1962

Place of Birth:

Washington, D.C.

Education:

B.A. in English, Oberlin College, 1984; M.A. in creative writing, University of East Anglia, 1994

Website:

http://www.tchevalier.com

Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION

A voyage of discoveries, a meeting of two remarkable women, and extraordinary time and place enrich bestselling author Tracy Chevalier's enthralling new novel

From the moment she's struck by lightening as a baby, it is clear that Mary Anning is marked for greatness. On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, she learns that she has "the eye"-and finds what no one else can see. When Mary uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious fathers on edge, the townspeople to vicious gossip, and the scientific world alight. In an arena dominated by men, however, Mary is barred from the academic community; as a young woman with unusual interests she is suspected of sinful behavior. Nature is a threat, throwing bitter, cold storms and landslips at her. And when she falls in love, it is with an impossible man.

Luckily, Mary finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot, a recent exile from London, who also loves scouring the beaches. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy. Ultimately, in the struggle to be recognized in the wider world, Mary and Elizabeth discover that friendship is their greatest ally.

Remarkable Creatures is a stunning novel of how one woman's gift transcends class and social prejudice to lead to some of the most important discoveries of the nineteenth century. Above all, is it a revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship.

ABOUT TRACY CHEVALIER

"I was born and grew up in Washington, DC. After getting a BA in English from Oberlin College (Ohio), I moved to London, England in 1984. I intended to stay 6 months; I’m still here.

"As a kid I’d often said I wanted to be a writer because I loved books and wanted to be associated with them. I wrote the odd story in high school, but it was only in my twenties that I started writing ‘real’ stories, at night and on weekends. Sometimes I wrote a story in a couple evenings; other times it took me a whole year to complete one.

"Once I took a night class in creative writing, and a story I’d written for it was published in a London-based magazine called Fiction. I was thrilled, even though the magazine folded 4 months later.

I worked as a reference book editor for several years until 1993 when I left my job and did a year-long MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (England). My tutors were the English novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. For the first time in my life I was expected to write every day, and I found I liked it. I also finally had an idea I considered ‘big’ enough to fill a novel. I began The Virgin Blue during that year, and continued it once the course was over, juggling writing with freelance editing.

"An agent is essential to getting published. I found my agent Jonny Geller through dumb luck and good timing. A friend from the MA course had just signed on with him and I sent my manuscript of The Virgin Blue mentioning my friend’s name. Jonny was just starting as an agent and needed me as much as I needed him. Since then he’s become a highly respected agent in the UK and I’ve gone along for the ride."

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

The first sentence of the novel is, “Lightning has struck me all my life.” What did you expect after reading that? What does Mary mean?

What attracts Mary to fossil hunting? How is it different from Elizabeth’s motivation?

How would you characterize the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth—mother/daughter, sisters, or something else?

On page 39 Elizabeth says, “After little more than a year in Lyme I’d come to appreciate the freedom a spinster with no male relatives about could have there.” Why is that? What did “freedom” mean for a woman of the time? Who had more freedom—Elizabeth or Mary?

What role does religion play in Elizabeth’s life? In Mary’s?

How does the notion of “God’s intention” affect their fossil-hunting?

Why do you think that in the novel, the women are fossil hunters, while the men are fossil collectors? What point is Chevalier trying to make?

At different points in the novel, both Mary and Elizabeth have reason to think that they, themselves, might become fossils. What did each woman mean by that?

How does Colonel Birch come between the two women? What are his motives? In the end, do you consider him a decent man?

After Birch’s auction, on page 203, Elizabeth cries, “Not for Mary, but for myself.” Why?

Which woman needs the other more? Why?

Why does Elizabeth go to London? What does she hope to achieve?

Regarding her time on the Unity, Elizabeth says, “I did not expect it, but I had never been so happy.” (page 250) Why does she feel that way?

After Mary agrees to sell a specimen to Cuvier, Mam accuses her of becoming a collector, no longer a hunter. What does she mean by that? Is she right?

Upon Elizabeth’s return from London, Mary says she “was like a fossil that’s been cleaned and set so everyone can see what it is.” (page 298) What happened to change her?

What was your response to the ending?

Have you read any of Tracy Chevalier’s other novels? What similarities and differences do you see?

Interviews

A Message from the Author
One rainy day during school vacation, I took my son to a small dinosaur museum in southern England. He was in the dinosaur stage of his obsessions, and needed entertaining. I was not looking for an idea for a novel there. But that is what I came out with.

In one corner of the museum there was a small display about a woman named Mary Anning. In 1811 she and her brother found a complete specimen of an ichthyosaur, an ancient marine reptile which no one knew had even existed. (They thought it was a crocodile.) The discovery of such a creature challenged commonly held beliefs about the creation of the world. At that time there was no concept of extinction -- it would have been considered blasphemous to suggest that God might have created animals that He then allowed to die out as if they were mistakes.

Mary had no idea of the controversy her "crocodile" would set off. She was simply finding and selling fossils to make a living. That was what drew me to her story: she was a working-class woman holding her own among middle-class male scientists. There was something special about her -- underlined by the fact that she survived being struck by lightning as a baby. Indeed, some suggested that made her more intelligent.

I had a lot of fun researching Remarkable Creatures, in particular in getting to know Lyme Regis, a small town on the south coast where Mary lived. An isolated fishing village which became a tourist destination by the early 19th century, Lyme Regis still attracts eccentric, independent sorts. Most readers know it as the setting of John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman. Visitors like to walk to the end of the town's curved jetty, called the Cobb, and do their best Meryl Streep impersonation from the movie, tossing their hair and looking mournfully out to sea as the waves crash around them.

There's another side to Lyme Regis, though, which is equally dramatic: its beaches and cliffs stuffed with 200 million-year-old fossils. I spent a lot of time on those beaches, following in Mary's footsteps and keeping one eye on the tide and falling rocks as I searched for ammonites, belemnites and the odd dinosaur bone. I even managed to find the shoulder bone and vertebra of a plesiosaur, one of the other creatures Mary discovered. Those moments of discovery were like bolts of lightning for me, and I felt for a second that I was experiencing my character's life. --Tracy Chevalier

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Tracy Chevalier

"Evokes entire landscapes...a master of voices."
—New York Times Book Review (on Falling Angels)

"Absorbing...[Chevalier] creates a world reminiscent of a Vermeer interior: suspended in a particular moment, it transcends its time and place."
—The New Yorker (on Girl With a Pearl Earring)

“Chevalier admirably weaves historical figures and actual events into a compelling narrative.”
—San Francisco Chronicle (on Remarkable Creatures)

"Chevalier's signature talent lies in bringing alive the ordinary day-to-dayness of the past...lovingly evoked."
—Elle (on Burning Bright)

"Chevalier's ringing prose is as radiantly efficient as well-tended silver."
—Entertainment Weekly (on Falling Angels)

From the Publisher

The discoveries of fossils on the beaches of Lyme Regis, England, in the 19th century rocked the world and opened the minds of scientists to the planet's unimaginable age and the extinction of species. Though attributed to men of consequence, the first remarkable finds were made by the poor working-class Anning family—and their young daughter, Mary. Chevalier wraps the history with a tale of the friendship between Mary and Elizabeth Philpot, a gentlewoman also fascinated by the creatures of stone, in a time when women were thought to be ill-suited to the work or incapable of understanding the scope of their finds. Each of these two characters tells a first-person story, and Susan Lyons gives Elizabeth Philpot the diction, reserve, subdued tones, and poise expected of a gentlewoman and shades her with idiosyncrasies, passions, and palpable loneliness. Charlotte Parry is convincing as a callow, coarse Mary Anning, and listeners will witness her gradual maturing and refinement as the story unfolds. The quality audio production enhances Chevalier's picturesque historical novel. A Dutton hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 28). (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

In early 1800s England, unmarried women of the upper classes were often relegated to the fringes of society, where they could find a polite way to spend their days; those of the lower classes had even fewer options. This work, based on a true story, portrays two women from these diverse backgrounds who share a fascination with fossils. Mary Anning is an impoverished girl with a gift for finding prehistoric skeletons along the coast, which also interest genteel spinster Elizabeth Philpot. She recognizes Mary's talent as she also understands the enormous implications of the specimens uncovered, for this was before Darwin, when the concept of extinction was unknown, and it was blasphemous to consider that some of God's creatures may have been flawed. Over time, both women strive for scientific credibility, love, and financial stability, with varying degrees of success. VERDICT Superbly creating a unique setting, as she did in The Girl with a Pearl Earring, Chevalier captures the atmosphere of a chilly, blustery coast and an oppressive social hierarchy in real Dickensian fashion. Readers of historical fiction will enjoy this fascinating tale of rustic paleontology. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/09.]—Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty.\

Library Journal

More fact-based historical fiction from Chevalier (Burning Bright, 2007, etc.): the vivid, rewarding tale of 19th-century fossil hunter Mary Anning. Before Darwin's findings rocked the world, a small group of scientists were already-in some people's view, blasphemously-questioning the age of the Earth, the finality of God's creation and the possibility of an ancient world before man. In young Mary's case, however, finding fossils quite simply keeps her family from the workhouse. Raised in Lyme Regis on the English coast, she's trained by her father to spot what they call "curies" (curiosities): ammonites, belemnites, fossilized fish on the beach and embedded in cliffs that the family sells to tourists during the summer. Paired with Mary's narrative is that of Elizabeth Philpot, dispatched with her two sisters from London to the coast when their brother marries. Elizabeth (also a historical figure, like most of the characters) is impressed by Mary's sharp eye and considerable knowledge about fossils, remarkable qualities for an illiterate girl. Plain, outspoken and without the substantial income that would make those failings palatable, Elizabeth is resigned to spinsterhood, but Lyme offers outlets for her curiosity about the natural world, as well as the satisfaction of watching a burgeoning science develop. She forms an unlikely alliance with Mary as they comb the beach together, and when Mary's discoveries of several complete dinosaur fossils (including a pterodactyl) bring the scientific community to her door, Elizabeth acts as spokeswoman for her less confident friend. Chevalier handles the science with a deft hand, but her real subject is two women barred from the professionalcommunity of men who are also denied access to the more acceptable roles of wife and mother. (Mary's "unwholesome" pursuits and working-class background put her beyond the pale of proper society.). Yet somehow Mary and Elizabeth thrive, and the novel glories in their substantial achievements against considerable odds. Shines a light on women usually excluded from history-and on the simple pleasures of friendship.

Kirkus Reviews

Chevalier plays to all her strengths in this fascinating fact-based novel about Mary Anning, a working-class girl in early nineteenth-century Lyme Regis who finds dinosaurs fossils in the cliffs along the beach. Elizabeth Philpot, who could have stepped straight out of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, becomes Mary’s friend and champion when her discoveries put her at odds with all-male, class-bound scientific communities that believe, at worst, that the world was created only 6,000 years ago and could not include extinct creatures, and, at best, that women cannot do science. Charlotte Parry creates a gutsy but vulnerable Mary while Susan Lyons gives us a proper and ladylike Elizabeth. Together, they create an original and moving duet of unlikely friendship in this impeccable production. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2010 - AudioFile