Remarkable Creatures

by Tracy Chevalier

Guide to All the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places for 1804,’

had to find a passion: I was twenty-five years old, unlikely ever to marry, and in need of a hobby to fill my days. It is so tedious being a lady sometimes.

decided I needed a cabinet in which to display them properly.

That’s how fossil hunting is: It takes over, like a hunger, and nothing else matters but what you find. And even when you find it, you still start looking again the next minute, because there might be something even better waiting.

Collectors have a list of items to be obtained, a cabinet of curiosities to be filled by others’ work.