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    Remarkable Creatures
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    Remarkable Creatures
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    Remarkable Creatures
    Audiobook9 hours

    Remarkable Creatures

    Written by Tracy Chevalier

    Narrated by Hattie Morahan

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    I don't remember there ever being a time when I weren't out upon beach. Mam used to say the window was open when I was born, and the first thing I saw when they held me up was the sea.

    Mary Anning may be young and uneducated, but she has “the eye”. Scouring the windswept Jurassic coast near Lyme Regis, she find the fossils nobody else can, making discoveries that will shake the scientific world of the early 19th century. But science is a male-dominated arena, and there are many who disapprove…

    She finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot: unmarried, middle-aged and middle class, and a fellow fossil enthusiast. If they can weather differences in their age and standing, and overcome professional envy, will true friendship prove the rarest find of all?

    “A stunning story.” GUARDIAN

    “Vivid and engrossing.” FINANCIAL TIMES
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateApr 30, 2015
    ISBN9781471293740
    Unavailable
    Remarkable Creatures
    Author

    Tracy Chevalier

    Tracy Chevalier is the author of eleven novels, including A Single Thread, Remarkable Creatures and Girl with a Pearl Earring, an international bestseller that has sold over five million copies and been made into a film, a play and an opera. Born in Washington DC, she moved to the United Kingdom in 1986. She and her husband divide their time between London and Dorset.

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    Reviews for Remarkable Creatures

    4/5

    1,234 ratings144 reviews

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    • 2/5
      In the early 19th century, Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot scour the cliffs and beaches of Lyme Regis for fossils. Both women make discoveries that change the world.This tale is about two women who I knew nothing about. Tracy Chevalier does do an excellent job of bringing the era to life. Her descriptions always give a good sense of time and place. Told alternatively by Elizabeth and Mary the story tells of both their fortunes and misfortunes. The narrative of Mary was my favourite out of the two.I have read books by TC before and I either love them ( Virgin Blue, Falling Angels, Burning Bright,Lady and the Unicorn) or I don't enjoy them so much ( At the End of the Orchard, Girl with the Pearl Earring). This book falls into the not so much. Although I loved the descriptions and found the two women fascinating I felt the book was boring. Not at first, I was enjoying it but I did become very bored. I will seek out further work by Tracy Chevalier but this offering is not one of my favourites.
    • 4/5
      A good historical novel. Chevalier makes the world of 19th-century England come alive while chronicling the life of fossil hunter Mary Anning. This is history, paleontology, a look at cultural customs and a touching story of friendship.
    • 4/5
      I have read this book group but it was already on my TBR, so this was no hardship. It took me slightly longer to get into this story than my previous read by Tracy Chevalier - The Girl with the Pearl Earring. However, it grew on me from about the half way mark when it got interesting. Although I have been to Lyme Regis, I didn't know much about Mary Anning.This is typical historical fiction, but what I like is that we are not focussing on Britain's monarchs over the past years but one of our greatest and possibly our first palaeontologist. Although not trained in that field, she is perhaps more correctly, as written in the book a fossilist. Mary was trained by her father to search for fossils and this was the way, after Richard Anning's death, the family came to earn their living by selling on their finds to some of the great collectors and scientists. Upon meeting Elizabeth Philpott, Mary learns more about her finds. Elizabeth does not have Mary's natural ability to search and dig out these specimens but she can read and write and is learned to some extent in this field. Although, the relationship between the two very different people at the centre of the story was interesting, for me, the book really developed when the collectors were introduced and how they impacted on the relationship between Mary and Miss Philpott. Particularly Colonel Birch for whom they both harboured different feelings.As usual a well written story with plenty of detail and description in location and setting. Likeable and believable characterisations weaving fiction alongside the factual information. I liked the nod to Jane Austen as having possible visited the Assembly Rooms and as the author mentions in her postscript Miss Austen was a visitor to the area so this was quite likely.
    • 4/5
      I had no idea anyone named Mary Annings or Elizabeth Philpot even existed. Now I want to find out more about the real people. In this novel these two women, from completely different backgrounds, who share the same passion, form a deep friendship in an era when it was completely improper for women to hunt for fossils and be interested in anything other than trying to secure a husband. A most enjoyable read!
    • 4/5
      Chevalier has written a remarkable book about two remarkable women, Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot. These were real women who lived in the same era as Jane Austen. What made them unique was their occupation as fossil hunters. While Elizabeth did it as a hobby, Mary Anning actually made a living hunting fossils on the beach at Lyme-Regis. She made some major discoveries of the fossils of extinct creatures. The public's reactions to these discoveries form the major plot of the book as their discovery shook many people to the core of their being. This is a very enjoyable book that provides a perspective into a little-considered topic from a bygone era.
    • 4/5
      A charming historical novel about a young woman who hunts fossils, and the cast of characters that surround her. The story is early 19th century, prior to Darwin, while society was still struggling to understand what fossils were, and resisted the idea that they were extinct creatures, because it cast doubt on the goodness of the creation. The author gives the characters a chance to voice differing philosophies, without stepping out of the bounds of what ideas might have been floated then. She doesn't move into modern explanations, or have some character with magical prescience to predict what we will later know. They are groping in the dark, trying to comprehend the 'monsters' they are finding in the rocks, while also coping with the rigid class system and stern personal morality of the time. The total invisibility of women in this world, and the lack of acceptance of them as intelligent players, is heightened by focusing on the story of two women who hunted fossils together, their names left off the labels of museum specimens, or replaced with the names of the men who purchased the fossils from them. The tensions between the clashing worldviews, the stress of rapidly changing times, and the age-old emotions of love, hatred, jealousy, and friendship are nicely drawn out. The story is told in first person from the pov of the two main characters; this does make it a bit disconcerting at first, until you figure out that the chapters alternate. The difference in the grammar and style of the two characters does make it a bit easier to know who you are reading once you get used to the format, but a bit of guidance might have helped a bit. Overall, an enjoyable read, and it can read either as astute historical fiction or as light reading for those who don't want to think about the deeper meanings.
    • 5/5
      Loved the background story to Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot. Made Lyme Regis come even more alive
    • 4/5
      Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot are fossil hunters. In the 1800's though, people didn't recognize fossils for what they were, and women were not considered capable of scientific discovery and reasoning.
    • 5/5
      Incredible voice acting - I thought it was two different women! Fascinating story, engrossing and heartening.
    • 4/5
      Lyme Regis, Dorset; c.1805-c1825. Mary Anning is a fossil hunter - but as a working class girl her life is dominated by the need to put food on the family table, and she's largely ignored by the scientific establishment. Elizabeth Philpot, a middle class spinster of some education, fares a little better, but even so her life and fossil-hunting are circumscribed by the constraints imposed on her sex. The two women tell their stories in alternating chapters, sometimes overlapping, sometimes leaving much unsaid as they recount some twenty years' worth of memories. They speak of their friendship and their work. They describe their struggle to understand what the fossils are and how they fit with the account of creation they have been taught. They recount their battles with the scientific establishment and with the expectations of their families. They demonstrate just how much of a gentleman's club some areas of science were in the nineteenth century, and how much consternation there was over these discoveries.These two women come alive in the pages of this novel, and it is a pleasure to read their stories. Chevalier's postscript sets out which parts of her narrative are taken from known history and which are her own speculation, and she also provides a short list of further reading about these fascinating women whose contributions to the science of geology were overlooked in their own day.
    • 4/5
      Based on the true history of Mary Anning, a 19th century woman who became renowned as a 'fossilist', Remarkable Creatures recounts the story behind the discovery of ancient creatures whose fossils washed up on the shores of Lyme Regis, a village in England and the friendship which develops between two fossil hunters, Mary and Elizabeth Philpot.I enjoyed this book very much. The friendship between the two women showed how class structure and status, as well as gender, affected what a woman could and could not do in polite society during the 1800's. I could feel the frustration, along with the characters, of not being taken seriously by the established norms of the day. I also enjoyed following Mary as she made amazing discoveries along the beaches of Lyme Regis. Having majored in geology at university, I especially enjoyed recognizing the familiar names of some of the creatures Mary Anning picked up and was taken aback when a very familiar name from the world of geology popped up on the page.
    • 4/5
      Based on real-life people of interest, Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, Remarkable Creatures is a story about an unlikely friendship between two vastly different women who bonded over fossils and fossil hunting in Lyme Regis at the start of the 19th century. Very interesting subject matter regarding fossils, friendship, a woman's place in society, and how men have often over-looked women who have contributed to the sciences. It's not an engrossing story. There's no romance, no big twist, and no happy ending. The unusual subject matter might struggle to hold your attention, especially if you're expecting much of the same as her other novels, but it's a well-written and inspiring story. Well worth the time to read.
    • 4/5
       A lovely story about two women bonding over a love of fossils. When I received the book I was a little worried it would be dull, but I think I was well proven wrong. Tracy Chevalier's books are more about the characters and their experiences, and this story made me feel empowered as a woman and grateful to the strong women of the past. The book is laid out in long chapters that switch between the voices of Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning. Each character is written in a distinct voice so it's hard to mistake who's thoughts you're in. I can't say I felt more connected to one over the other, but I enjoyed their friendship so much because it felt entirely real.
    • 5/5
      Historical fiction based on the lives of real people, amateur paleontologists Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning, in the early 1800s in Lyme Regis, England. Elizabeth is an educated lady who has relocated from London, and Mary is a working-class daughter of an impoverished cabinet maker. They become unlikely friends, bonding over their love of fossils and searching for them by the sea. When Mary unearths a skeleton of what appears to be a large crocodile, it ultimately leads to their interaction with well-known male paleontologists of the day.

      The narrative alternates perspectives between Elizabeth and Mary. They are based on real people and Chevalier writes them into life, complete with obsessions and idiosyncrasies. The two women face a number of obstacles, including a male-dominated society that minimizes the role of women and church officials that do not support the concept of extinction. The reader can feel a sense of injustice when Mary is not even given credit for discovering the skeleton. The period is portrayed beautifully. I particularly liked how the authors shows the tremendous gap in scientific knowledge at the time the fossils are initially discovered.

      This book weaves together history, science, unconventional women, and a solid storyline, so it is no surprise that I enjoyed it tremendously. It vividly portrays the thrill of discovery and inspired me to research the people behind the story. I have read three of Chevalier’s novels and this one is my favorite by far.
    • 4/5
      Elizabeth Philpott is from a middle-class family in the early 1800s in England while Mary Anning is from a working class family. Both of them have an interest in the fossils found on the beach at Lyme Regis. Elizabeth collects them while Mary sells them to make money for her family, until they make some incredible discoveries. The two become friends after a time. They struggle to have their discoveries taken seriously and also to get the credit they deserve. Men in the scientific community wanted to take the credit, and Elizabeth in particular fought for the recognition they deserved. Some of their discoveries challenged the thought at the time regarding the age of the Earth, so they received some backlash about that also. The book moved slowly and wasn't interesting me a whole lot at first, until I found that the characters were real people. The author stayed quite close to the historical facts. It was good to read online that the 2 women have been remembered and honored today for their accomplishments as rare women scientists during that time period.
    • 5/5
      A most unusual story. Very well written. I will look for more books by this author.
    • 2/5
      adult fiction. Seems ok, I just have too many audio to listen to right now, and this is among the least exciting.
    • 3/5
      A nice story with thread of feminism throughout. I thought the prose was simple, leaving me wanting a more literary reading experience. I think this is more of a YA read.
    • 2/5
      This was a slow read for me, although it is only 310 pages, it did not capture my interest and hold it. I kept putting it down and reading something else and forced myself to finish it. While I do like Tracy Chevalier’s writing, and I consider her a wonderful writer when it comes to period detail and description, I found these characters to be rather flat. I was not that interested in any of them and found her secondary characters to be tedious. And although I admit to not having a lot of interest in fossils this book did not make me more interested in them either, a really good book would have piqued my interest more.
    • 4/5
      Having read The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World by Deborah Cadbury some years ago and having visited Lyme Regis and Charmouth to look for fossils in a very amateur fashion, I found this novel an imaginative recreation of Mary Anning’s and Elizabeth Philpot’s involvement in the discovery of fossils at Lyme Regis, Dorset in the early nineteenth century.Although well researched fiction, she weaves her research seamlessly into the story and knowing some of the story, made the dramatisation more effective as I recognised characters and places. A delightful read.
    • 4/5
      Very enjoyable historical novel from a feminist perspective of independence in the 1800's. Both main characters likeable and believable and true (I think) to their circumstances. The split narration was not bothersome as both narrators were quite good
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable and quick read about female fossil hunters in the 19th century in the UK. Not a bit of history I knew nor how fossils were a threat to religious belief of the time.
    • 4/5
      This is a novel based on the life of Lyme Regis fossil hunter Mary Anning. It brings over quite well the precariousness of her family's circumstances, completely dependent on Mary's finding of her "curies" on the beach. Chapters are told alternately from the points of view of Mary and her lifelong friend and fellow fossil hunter, Elizabeth Philpot, who came from a higher social class - an unusual friendship for the time, founded on their passion for pushing forward the boundaries of geological and biological knowledge of the times, an occupation frowned on, given their gender. While mostly based on the true events of their lives, it does introduce a romantic element and a cause for jealousy between the two women, which doesn't really add to the story. A good read about a remarkable pair of early female pioneers in the sciences (though neither they nor their contemporaries would have described them as such).
    • 5/5
      Great book - factual and inspirational - having been to Lyme, walked on the cliffs and bought a fossil ammonite - reading more about Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpott was an enjoyable weekend read.
    • 4/5
      I would not have minded extra 200 pages about Mary's adult working life. I felt like too much of the book was dedicated to hers and Elizabeth's younger days and too few was written about their adult life. A very enjoyable read overall, especially if you are interested in the subject.
    • 4/5
      Remarkable Creatures is a quietly encompassing book with many messages from the early 19th century.Starting with Mary Anning and her lightning strike and ending with recognition of her astonishing contributions to geology, evolution, dinosaurs, history, and the importance, thanks to her courage, of women in science and life.It offers the best of historical fiction by inspiring research into the truths of what actually happened.And, while the author details the inner life of Elizabeth Philpot, readers may wish for more, however imagined,of what Mary Anning was thinking and feeling during all those day and night hours on the beachesand in her workshop. Her sharp tongued Mam offers contrasts of reason, yet it is her father, Richard Anning,whose presence would have been so welcome. Where her brother gives an understandable balance,it would have been a joy to listen to her father speak and challenge the Colonel and the variousMen of Science.
    • 4/5
      3.75 starsIt is the early 1800s. Elizabeth is a 25-year old middle-class spinster, who moves from London to Lyme Regis with her two sisters. She quickly becomes friends with 5-year old, Mary, who helps Elizabeth foster a love of collecting fossils. As Mary grows up, she is able to find more and more and better and better fossils, but things start to change as men hear about her finds and arrive to do their own fossil-hunting. Although this one started off slowly for me, I did quite enjoy it. It did pick up in the second half, as Mary got older, I thought, and I was very interested to discover that both Mary and Elizabeth were real people, as were the majority of the people in the book.
    • 4/5
      This is the second novel I have read about the fossil hunter Mary Anning. The other was Curiosity by Joan Thomas. If you want to only read one book about this woman then I would recommend this book over Curiosity which was rambling and unfinished as far as I was concerned.Mary Anning was a poor girl raised in Lyme Regis on the shore of the English Channel. The cliffs and beaches around Lyme Regis were known for being a good source of fossils and the whole Anning family hunted for fossils which they sold to tourists. Then Mary Anning's brother found the remains of a much larger creature than anything that had been found before. By this time three Philpot sisters were living in Lyme Regis, having had to find somewhere more reasonable to live once their parents died and they were left with an income of 150 pounds per annum. Elizabeth Philpot had befriended Mary as she was also interested in fossils. Elizabeth loaned the money to hire two quarry workers to extract the rock containing the creature from the cliff. Mary cleaned it up and it was sold to the local lord. Mary became obsessed with finding more of these creatures and went on to find quite a few which were classified as ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pterodactyls. These discoveries rocked the established thought about the creation and age of the earth and lead to profound changes in geology, religion and science in general. Mary did not initially get much acknowledgement as the finder of the creatures but eventually her name became known and celebrated. Elizabeth Philpot, as a collector of fossil fish, was acknowledged by the British Museum when she donated some specimens but as a woman she could not join the Geological Society. Women were still second class citizens throughout this period.I really enjoyed some of the details that Chevalier included in the book that showed the state of society at the time. There was a rigid class system and Mary was decidedly lower class. In a small town like Lyme Regis she and the Philpots could interact in public but they would never entertain each other. Mary could not enter the Assembly Rooms where the upper classes danced and played cards. Mary could dream of marrying one of the gentlemen that came to hunt fossils but it could never happen. The quality of her discoveries was so astonishing that she was eventually able to transcend the class barriers.
    • 3/5
      What an absolutely charming story. I really love reading accounts, even fictional, about women throughout history. These two "remarkable creatures" were ahead of their time and place - as so many others. Their courage and endurance are still lessons for modern women.
    • 4/5
      Interesting, educational and well written.