In 1811, when she was only twelve years old, Mary Anning discovered the first dinosaur skeleton - of an ichthyosaur - while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis. Mary, the child of a poor family, became a fossil hunter, selling her discoveries and attracting the attention of fossil collectors and eventually the scientific world. Until Mary's discovery, it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct. But the bizarre nature of the fossils Mary found made it impossible to ignore the truth, sparking the conversation about evolution carried on by scientists from Charles Darwin to Stephen Jay Gould.

Prologue
Snakestones, Thunderbolts, and Verteberries
A Fantastic Beast
An Unimaginable World
A Great Kindness
A Long-Necked Beauty 
The Hidden Mysteries of Coprolites
Finally, The Big City Of London
An Amazing New Fish
Spilling Secrets
Esteemed Visitors
The Earth Moves
The Making Of A Legend
Epilogue
Timeline

SHELLEY EMLING has been a journalist for twenty years, her work  has appeared in The New York Times, Fortune, Slate, and The International Herald Tribune. She lives in London, UK.