PREFACE

Although The Dragon in the Cliff is a work of fiction, it is based on the fragmentary facts available about a real person and the place and time in which she lived. Mary Anning was, in fact, the first person to discover the fossil of an entire marine dinosaurlike creature. She made this discovery in 1812 when she was thirteen years old. At that time the sciences of geology and paleontology were in their infancies and the existence of dinosaurs was as yet unknown. Scientists were just beginning to accumulate evidence that species evolve, putting in jeopardy long-held beliefs about the special place that human beings occupy in the natural world.

Finding the remains of a giant dinosaurlike creature would be exciting under any circumstances. But finding them under the circumstances of Mary Anning’s life is a drama of a very special kind. Mary Anning lived at a time when women were excluded from scientific activity even if they came from well-to-do families. The fact that Mary Anning was not only female, but that she came from a poor family in a small town and still managed to contribute to the scientific work of her time is what makes her achievements so remarkable. It was in trying to imagine what it must have been like for her to have made such a discovery and how it affected her life that I came to write this book.

Sheila Cole

Solana Beach, California

January 2, 1990