Mary Anning was one of the first women palaeontologists, wore top hats, and sold "curiosities".
Curiosity, a historical novel by Joan Thomas, drew me with its promise of pre-Darwin theories of evolution and a love story. The love story was disappointing, but the ideas surrounding Mary Anning's life are fascinating.
Mary would sell
sea lilies, "snake stones" ammonites, "devil's fingers" belemnites, "verteberries", and other fossils. While hunting for curiosities to sell in her shop, she found the first ichthyosaur skeleton to be properly identified (though at first she thought it might be a dragon) and the first plesiosaurs.
Because she was a poor woman, many of her discoveries were forgotten and went unrecognized by European geologists and palaeontologists. But in her home town of Lyme Regis, people told stories about the peculiar woman for generations. The tale would usually start with "she sells sea shells by the sea shore..."
She is now considered to be among the most influential British women in the history of science. There's a great article
here.
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