Are there any novels set in the 1800s about paleontology/reactions to the discovery of dinosaurs?

[Darren_Garrison]

BTW, there were probably meteorites also held sacred in the ancient world and now lost, such as this one. A shrine in Japan has managed to keep one for more than 1,150 years now.

[dropzone]

@blondebear

Dragon’s Teeth is a decent summer beach/airplane novel, fast-paced but not deep in any way. It does give the reader a pretty good feel for the skullduggery afoot during the Bone Wars.

When I saw the thread’s title I immediately thought of Cope and Marsh.

@Egnu_Cledge

Your idea that fossils inspired the myths and tales of dragons is probably spot on. It’s not a novel, but Adrienne Mayor’s The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology In Greek And Roman Times addresses that thesis.

Adrienne contacted me about one of my SDSAB reports, thinking I was Cecil. Despite her disappointment we’re still FB friends.

[Meurglys]

You could try Pictures From an Expedition by Diane Smith. It features a female illustrator on an expedition during the 1870s, shortly after the Battle of the Little Big Horn,’ to find new fossils, etc. It’s had mixed reviews but I enjoyed it. Lots of conversations with the scientists involved about the significance of their finds and dinosaurs and evolution.

There’s also a graphic novel about the bone wars called [Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards](Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards). Much of the history in it is correct but it includes some more fictional aspects with various cameos by famous people of the time.

[Gyrate]

In children’s literature, there’s Stone Girl, Bone Girl by Laurence Anholt, a fictionalized story of Mary Anning’s childhood which has enough truth to it to be interesting. Ignore the small and possibly mystical dog.

I also recommend The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley, which is not so much about real dinosaurs as it is about the creation of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs (both Crystal Palaces), although those were themselves about the new and exciting field of palaeontology.

[Kimstu]

Does poetry count?

Bret Harte, “The Society upon the Stanislaus”, 1868

I RESIDE at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James;
I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;
And I 'll tell in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow. […]

Now nothing could be finer or more beautiful to see
Than the first six months’ proceedings of that same Society,
Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones
That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones.

Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,
From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare;
And Jones then asked the chair for a suspension of the rules,
Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost mules.

Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault,
It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones’s family vault […]

Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent
To say another is an ass,—at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by heaving rocks at him, to any great extent. […]

For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage
In a warfare with the remnants of a palæozoic age;
And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,
Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in. […]