In the midst of the Industrial Revolution, an extraordinary group of scientists struggled to make sense of a mysterious, prehistoric world—a world that they had to piece together from the fossilized, fragmentary remains of animals no one had ever seen.

These nineteenth-century pioneers were an eccentric lot that included a working-class woman, an Oxford professor with a theatrical bent, a crisis-ridden country doctor who was never quite accepted among London's scientific elite, and an expert anatomist who once dissected a rhino in his living room.

These were the Dragon Seekers, the people who brought the myths to life and whose work, within a populace raised on a literal interpretation of Genesis, laid the groundwork for the revolutionary ideas of Darwin.

"Langton's clear, precise, British-accented narration makes the occasionally technical information easy to absorb. He readily conveys McGowan's passionate regard for his subject and his obvious frustration with the limitations placed on the discoveries because of biblical interpretations."

Christopher McGowan is a full professor in the department of zoology at the University of Toronto and senior curator of paleobiology at the Royal Ontario Museum. He is the author of ten books, including The Raptor and The Lamb and Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons.