You Want This On Your Bookshelf: The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black by E.B. Hedspeth
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Quirk Books (May 21, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594746168
ISBN-13: 978-1594746161
Philadelphia, the late 1870s. A city of gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and horse-drawn carriages—and home to the controversial surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a grave robber, young Dr. Black studies at Philadelphia’s esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world’s most celebrated mythological beasts—mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs—were in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind?
The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from a childhood spent exhuming corpses through his medical training, his travels with carnivals, and the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black’s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy for mythological beasts—dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus—all rendered in meticulously detailed anatomical illustrations. You need only look at these images to realize they are the work of a madman. The Resurrectionist tells his story.
Earlier this week, we received this awesome book in the mail, sent to us by Quirk Books. I was definitely a bit confused when I first opened the package; half of the book seemed to be a biography of some old scientist, with the other half being drawings of various mythological creatures. It wasn't until I started to actually read the biography and all of the notes that accompany the creature that I realized how cool this book is. Though it is completely fiction, it is written and displayed in an entirely legitimate manner; when reading this book, you find yourself starting to want to believe that it's all the truth. This book is well written, enticingly interesting, and definitely something that you want on your bookshelf.
It sounds funky, in a good way. I would have overlooked it because of the cover, so thanks for the review.
ReplyDeleteIt was seriously cool! I was looking through it at Austin's house, and it has like all these different mythological creature and their skeletal make up and stuff.
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