The Dragon Seekers: The Discovery of Dinosaurs During the Prelude to Darwin Book

In The Dragon Seekers, Chris McGowan takes us through the 19th century social world of Jane Austen into that of Charles Dickens and sets the scene in which Charles Darwin grew up both physically and intellectually. McGowan brilliantly introduces the arcane world of early 19th century rocks and fossils for the general reader. Here the main characters are not just the human ones, such as the famous Anning family of Lyme Regis and the eccentric Dr Buckland of Oxford University but also the monsters of the real Jurassic Park with all those unpronounceable names; the extinct sea dragons such as Ichthyosaurus and dinosaurs such as Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus. The Dragon Seekers shows how history was made by unlikely people such as the working class professional collectors who even risked their lives to recover fossils from storm battered treacherous cliffs around Britain's coasts. The Anning's stomping ground of Lyme Regis has just been recognised as a World Heritage Site and, as McGowan tells us, is still searched by intrepid fossil hunters. The extraordinary story of how, where and by whom they were discovered makes for excellent reading in the expert hands of Chris McGowan. McGowan is a professional academic fossilist in Canada and has written several successful popular books on fossils such as The Raptor and the Lamb and Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons. Nicely illustrated with lots of evocative contemporary prints, good notes, further reading and index, The Dragon Seekers is a great read for anyone interested in the 19th century, British social history, evolution, dinosaurs and fossils in general. --Douglas PalmerRead More