{"product_id":"9780771084188","title":"Curiosity","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAward-winning novelist Joan Thomas blends fact and fiction, passion and science in this stunning novel set in 19th-century Lyme Regis, England \u003c\/b\u003e— \u003cb\u003ethe seaside town that is the setting of both \u003ci\u003eThe French Lieutenant's Woman \u003c\/i\u003eand Jane Austen's \u003ci\u003ePersuasion\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMore than 40 years before the publication of \u003cb\u003eThe Origin of Species\u003c\/b\u003e, 12-year-old Mary Anning, a cabinet-maker's daughter, found the first intact skeleton of a prehistoric dolphin-like creature, and spent a year chipping it from the soft cliffs near Lyme Regis. This was only the first of many important discoveries made by this incredible woman, perhaps the most important paleontologist of her day.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHenry de la Beche was the son of a gentry family, owners of a slave-worked estate in Jamaica where he spent his childhood. As an adolescent back in England, he ran away from military college, and soon found himself living with his elegant, cynical mother in Lyme Regis, where he pursued his passion for drawing and painting the landscapes and fossils of the area. One morning on an expedition to see an extraordinary discovery — a giant fossil — he meets a young woman unlike anyone he has ever met…\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"McClelland \u0026 Stewart Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47014891913456,"sku":"9780771084188","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780771084188_p0.jpg?v=1763661502","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780771084188","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}