Remarkable Creatures, by Tracy Chevalier

Chevalier’s newest historical fiction is based on the true story of Mary Anning, an uneducated young woman who made remarkable discoveries of prehistoric remains on the beach of her seaside town, Lyme Regis, in the early nineteenth century, and her friendship with a genteel spinster living in reduced circumstances there who shared her fascination with fossils. The themes of social class, the challenge of fossil discovery to literal interpretations of Biblical creation, and the devaluing of the contributions of women to science never obscure the novel’s engaging story. 312 pp.