“The Book of the Great Sea-Dragon” Rediscovering the Prehistoric Past in Special Collections

One of the most enjoyable aspects of working with Special Collections is that you often find yourself surprised. You might be searching through the catalogue, or browsing the length of a shelf, when something jumps out and makes you say “oh?”. Such was the case when in the Special Collections store room one day, a book on the bottom shelf caught my eye. It was called “The Book of the Great Sea-Dragon”. With a name like that, I had to have a closer look. When I reached down to the shelf and found that the book in question was almost two feet tall, I definitely had to look. And to my surprise, it was a book not about mythical sea monsters, but rather one about very real sea monsters. This was a book about dinosaur fossils, published during the boom of modern palaeontological discovery, at a time when the natural world was being explored and considered in a way it hadn’t been before.

Cover – Hawkins T., The Book of the Great Sea-Dragon

Frontispiece – Hawkins T., The Book of the Great Sea-Dragon

The human fascination with fossils predates “The Book of the Great Sea-Dragon” by millenia. Here in Ireland, fossils have been found deposited in ancient burial sites (Wyse Jackson and Connolly, 2002) and it is obvious that such relics held significance to the people of that time. But it was not until 1565 when Conrad Gestner published the first images of fossils in his book De omni rerum fossilium that the consideration of fossils as a scientific endeavour first entered the European psyche (Wyse Jackson, 2019). And it was yet another two hundred years before Georges Cuvier, the “founding father of palaeontology” (Reybrouck, 2012), brought fossils to the forefront of academia. Using mammoths and elephants as his examples, Cuvier was able to demonstrate the links between fossils and living animals and also put forward the case for extinction.

Comparison of elephant bones to mastodon fossils (above and below), Cuvier, G. Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles

In 1841, Richard Owen, first Superintendent of the Natural History Museum in London, coined the term dinosaur and by the mid-19th century palaeontology and the study of prehistoric life through fossil remains had entered mainstream academia.

Plate and cover from Hutchinson H. N., Creatures of other days

The interest in fossils wasn’t reserved for the academy however. By this point and into the 20th century, large cultural institutions such as the British Museum were holding exhibitions on the newly uncovered fossil remains. 1851 saw the construction of the now famous Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park in order to host the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. The exhibition sought to bring global wonders to a captivated Victorian audience and representing the new frontiers of natural science were displays of fossils and dinosaur bones alike. These proved so popular that the following year, well known artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkin was commissioned to sculpt large statues of his reimagined monsters. These sculptures, reported to be the first dinosaur statues ever created, still exist to this day and, as noted by Emily Osterloff, though they might look a tad naive to the modern viewer, these pieces represent the scientific data available to academia at this time, as well as demonstrating the importance but also the difficulty of reconstructing creatures that human eyes have never seen.

Figuier, L., The world before the deluge

Fossil hunting and collecting was a popular endeavour among the general public, not unlike the contemporaneous frenzy for fern collecting, a plant also famed for its ancient origins. Fossil experts, such as Mary Anning and her family, sold fossils and dinosaur bones to both seaside visitors and academics alike. Born into a fossil hunting family, Mary was taught from an early age how to find and recognise ancient remains at the nearby seaside at Lyme Regis. Anning’s contribution to early palaeontological study cannot be overstated however she had unfortunately been largely unrecognised for this until recent times. Once back in their homes, these eager tourists were decorating their homes with their souvenirs, displaying fossils alongside beautiful shells in specially designed shell cabinets.

Details from Hawkins T., The Book of the Great Sea-Dragon

Thinking back once again to the enigmatic “Book of the Great Sea-Dragon”, I initially thought it was a rarity among the collections housed here, an unusual oddity, but in fact once I looked further into the catalogue, I learned that it is just one of dozens, if not hundreds of books about dinosaurs and ‘monsters’. In hindsight, this isn’t so surprising. One of the largest and most comprehensive collections held here in UCD Special Collections, is that of the Royal College of Science for Ireland. Established in 1867 and eventually amalgamated into UCD in 1926, the Royal College of Science for Ireland or RCScI, offered an extensive curriculum of science subjects and, along with that, an impressive library of cutting edge academic texts. Straddling the fields of biology, zoology, and geology, of course the newly uncovered dinosaurs were featured.

Example of books from the RCScI collection

So while “The Book of the Great Sea-Dragon” is unusual in its size and its flowery language, it represents an age of discovery and a fascination with the prehistoric that was pervasive throughout Victorian society, one that is mirrored by our collections here in UCD. It serves as a case study for how a collection of rare books is not always simply an assemblage of individual texts and tomes but can be a window into society at that time, revealing the motivations of the people who chose these specific books to collect and disseminate, and the interests of those who read them. It demonstrates the development of scientific methods and beliefs over time, showing us how these have changed but also how some things have stayed the same. After all, we don’t have to look too far to see that the human fascination with dinosaurs is still as strong as ever. It encourages us to consider books within the wider context of the world in which they were created and, perhaps most of all, it tells us that if you happen to glance a two foot tall book on a shelf in your library, pull it out and have a look, you never know what it is you might rediscover.