But those bitten by the dinobug are fairly used to arcane details. Dean was particularly lucky to have found a previously unused and major source of Mantell manuscripts and documents, hidden away in New Zealand. It turns out that Mantell's son, Walter Mantell (1820-1895) took his fathers effects to New Zealand in 1859 and eventually donated them to the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. The story Dean tells gives fascinating insights into the struggle the scientists of the time had dealing with the new fossil material which was literally turning all preconceived ideas of the prehistoric world upside down. Nothing in the living world could prepare them to cope with the peculiarities of the extinct fossil reptiles. Dean clearly admires Mantell and his work and goes to great length's to put his side of the story, which has been otherwise obscured particularly by the larger reputation of Sir Richard Owen. The intricacies of the plot and the characters are worthy of Charles Dickens. Owen seems to have been monstrously loathsome, not dissimilar to the early portrayal of Iguanodon as a "low serpent-like creature". Indeed, Mantell described Owen as "an unprincipled varlet" in a letter he wrote to the famous American geologist Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale. -Douglas Palmer.

Virginia was surrounded by women in various states of mental collapse and her letters describing those collapses are vivid and at times terrifying. The bubonic plague, too, affected the nuns just as it did the outside world. But what emerges most strikingly from these letters is the degree to which Virginia supported her father. Suor Maria Celeste may never have left the convent but in her letters she accompanies her father through physical and intellectual trials. We see her planning her brother's wedding (which she can't attend) and copying out her father's manuscripts. The relationship between father and daughter "is not a tale of abuse or rejection or intentional stifling of abilities", writes Sobel. "Rather, it is a love story, a tragedy and a mystery. " -Simon Ings Galileo Galilei is famous for many things: for his science (Einstein called him the "father of modern physics"); for his flamboyant style (he wrote in Italian not Latin, enlivened texts with rough humour, argued loudly in staged debates) and for his harsh treatment by the Catholic Church. What's less well known are the details of his private life-a life that, as Dava Sobel points out in Galileo's Daughter, was just as complex as the scientist's public life. Galileo had three illegitimate children; the book's title refers to the oldest, Virginia, later Suor Maria Celeste (she took the name in acknowledgement of her father's fascination with the stars). Unable to marry because of her illegitimate status, Virginia entered a convent at 13 and maintained a lifelong correspondence with her father. Sobel has translated Virginia's surviving letters for the first time and, combining those letters, commentary, and gorgeous illustrations, she sets out in Galileo's Daughter to illuminate a different side of Galileo, the father deeply committed to his daughter and to her faith. Virginia's letters are tender, witty and intelligent. They are crammed with details of day-to-day life in Florence: "The broad beans are set out to dry and their stalks fed for breakfast to the little mule, who has become so haughty that she refuses to carry anyone. " Sobel's commentaries brilliantly help to put into contextual the letters. "Most of Suor Maria Celeste's letters travelled in the pocket of a messenger or in a basket laden with laundry, sweetmeats or herbal medicines. " But life in the convent was not idyllic. Virginia was surrounded by women in various states of mental collapse and her letters describing those collapses are vivid and at times terrifying. The bubonic plague, too, affected the nuns just as it did the outside world. But what emerges most strikingly from these letters is the degree to which Virginia supported her father. Suor Maria Celeste may never have left the convent but in her letters she accompanies her father through physical and intellectual trials. We see her planning her brother's wedding (which she can't attend) and copying out her father's manuscripts. The relationship between father and daughter "is not a tale of abuse or rejection or intentional stifling of abilities", writes Sobel. "Rather, it is a love story, a tragedy and a mystery. " -Simon Ings.