"In 1812 a twelve-year-old girl named Mary Anning was collecting fossils for her father beneath the cliffs of Dorset when she discovered the outline of a lizardlike skeleton embedded in the limestone. Working with a small hammer, she unearthed a giant prehistoric animal seventeen feet in length." "News of her discovery baffled scholars and attracted the attention of the Reverend William Buckland, and eccentric Oxford naturalist known for his interest in geology or "undergroundology," as he called it. Buckland eagerly used Mary's find and other remnant fossils to set in motion a quest to understand the world before Noah's flood, though his inquiry was in fact an attempt to prove the accuracy of the biblical record (the scriptures alone were the key to understanding history in his view, and fossils were interpreted in this context)." "Meanwhile, another naturalist, Gideon Mantell, a poor country doctor, uncovered giant petrified bones in a Sussex quarry and became obsessed with the ancient past that, he came to realize, must once have been teeming with creatures up to seventy feet long. Initially scorned by the scientific establishment, Mantell risked his reputation and career to reveal his vision of the lost world of reptiles." "Despite their efforts, it was the eminent anatomist Richard Owen, patronized by royalty, the prime minister, and the aristocracy, who claimed the credit for the discovery of the dinosaurs. Through guile, political intrigue, and brilliant scientific insight, Owen rose from a surgeon's apprentice in Lancaster to the highest echelons of society and was feted as the man who gave the extinct creatures their name, dinosaur, or "terrible lizard."" "Deborah Cadbury's lively story re-creates the bitter feud between Mantell and Owen, which drove one of them to despair and ruin and secured for the other unrivaled international acclaim. Their struggle brought to light the age of dinosaurs and created a new science that would forever change man's perception of his place in the universe."--BOOK JACKET.