Author:  Tracey Chevalier

Remarkable Creatures imagines the lives of two real women who suffered under and rebelled against the restrictive social mores of their early nineteenth century culture. Mary Anning grows from a poor girl in the seaside town of Lyme Regis, England, into a fossil hunter extraordinaire. Gifted with "the eye" for discovering fossilized remains of sea creatures, she eventually found extinct animals buried in the rock along her beach. These controversial discoveries thrust her into the professional world of science, which in the nineteenth century was dominated by men.

Mary, as a female who was interested in and even talented at hunting fossils, lived uncomfortably between the haven of her solitary beaches and the judgmental attitudes of her townspeople, and later the scientific community that owed her so much yet was reluctant to credit her honestly.

Elizabeth Philpot enters Mary's life as a spinster sent away from London to settle quietly in Lyme Regis (a common fate for unmarried women in Victorian England). She also developed an interest in hunting fossils, but of fish—creative but not controversial. Her hobby brought her to Mary's beaches, and the 30-something eccentric became friend and colleague to young Mary. Their unlikely friendship ebbed and flowed as the years passed. Professional and personal jealousies threatened their bond at times, but they balanced the difficulties through mutual sacrifice and humility.

The primary conflict revolves around Mary and Elizabeth's relationship—will their respective jealousies irreparably damage their friendship? Close behind that subtle tug-of-war lies the social conflict facing Mary in particular. Can a woman be heard and taken seriously regarding intellectual pursuits? Will the men who rule the scientific world give Mary due credit for the extraordinary discoveries she made? How or will she stand firm when the men, and their financial influence, control whether her family eats or starves?

Socially, Mary faces rebuke and disapproval from her townspeople. She is different from the typical 1820s young lady. Poor and self-educated, she must decide which road to follow—society's dictates or her own talent?

Tracey Chevalier wants the reader to cheer on the female protagonists, and with good reason. Modern women will be appalled at the gender inequality that Mary and Elizabeth endure, most likely thinking "I'm glad I wasn't alive in that era." The prejudice and injustice foisted upon the two women frustrate the reader on their behalf. But Chevalier accomplishes this goal at the expense of the men in the story. Only one of them (Mary's brother) is painted in a positive light. This lopsided portrayal reveals the author's feminist agenda, a valid theme when analyzing this period of history but one unfortunately hammered too long and too hard.

Another weakness of the story was its hyper-focus on the fossils themselves. Though the specimens are essential to the story, they need not have been described in such detail. These portions brought the meandering pace of the plot to a crawl. I spent the entire time reading the book thinking of the fossils as "remarkable creatures," when in truth I should have been thinking of Mary and Elizabeth instead.