Stone Girl, Bone Girl

When my kids were small they had a book about Mary Anning called Stone Girl, Bone Girl, and then, a few years ago I read another about her, by Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures.

Today we went to Lyme Regis, where she lived and made most of her discoveries.

Mary Anning was a 19th C fossilist who made huge contributions to science, but was terribly discriminated against, partly because she was poor, partly because she was female, and partly because she wasn't Anglican. She wrote in one letter: "The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone."