Discovering Dorothea: The Life of the Pioneering Fossil-Hunter Dorothea Bate - Softcover

Shindler, Karolyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006531865 ISBN 13: 9780006531869

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2006

Synopsis

The untold life of Dorothea Bate, an intrepid woman adventurer and early scientific pioneer.

Dorothea Bate, paleontologist, geologist, archaeologist and ornithologist, established archeo-zoology as a serious scientific subject. She lacked any real formal education bar a childhood love of natural history acquired from the Carmarthenshire countryside in which she grew up. In 1898, at the age of 19, she talked her way into a job sorting bird-skins in the Bird Room at the Natural History Museum, London, becoming the first woman to be employed there.

Dorothea possessed immense charm and energy, and over the next fifty years she was known as one of the outstanding personalities and scientists at the Museum. But she was to make her greatest impact outside the Museum – travelling and exploring (alone), discovering fossil remains and previously unheard of species (such as pygmy hippos and dwarf elephants), and thereafter her travels and explorations ranged throughout the Pleistocene and throughout the Mediterranean.

Karolyn Shindler beautifully recreates Dorothea’s life and reveals an ebullience and vivacity of character that shines from every line. On the unwanted attentions of the Vice-Consul in Majorca (where she had discovered a unique species of fossil antelope) Dorothea remarked: ‘I do hate old men who try to make love to one and ought not to in their official positions.’

This book is a splendid example of untold women’s history. Like the story of Mary Kingsley, and all those who feature in ‘The Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt’, it is the tale of a woman who sets out courageously to discover more about the world and in doing so have left an inspirational legacy for others.

About this title

About the Author

Karolyn Shindler read Modern History at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She worked in publishing and magazines before becoming a producer and editor at the BBC. There she worked on such programmes as Radio Four’s The World Tonight and BBC2’s Newsnight. She also worked as a political consultant to the BBC World Service. She lives in London with her partner, the broadcaster and journalist Henry Kelly, and their son, Alexander. She is a contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0006531865
• ISBN 13: 9780006531869
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352