Before the word "dinosaur" was even invented, an English girl discovered a remarkable skeleton on the rocky beach at Lyme Regis. Thus began a lifelong passion for the woman who became one of the first commercial fossil collectors.

Mary Anning left school at age eleven, but she spent a lifetime teaching herself about fossils and combing the rugged ribbon of shore bounded by crumbling cliffs and crashing waves. Her work yielded an astounding treasure-trove: fossils of long-extinct creatures that thrilled the customers of her shop and excited the finest scientists.

Mary Anning, who lived from 1799 to 1847, overcame the dangers and limitations imposed on women of her era to reconstruct ancient life from the bones that lay buried in the ground. With his trademark graceful prose and lyrical watercolors, Don Brown distills the life story of this rare treasure of history.

From the dust jacket