The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black

An extraordinary biography. A gallery of astonishing work. The legacy of a madman.Philadelphia, the late 1870s. A city of gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and horse-drawn carriages&;and home to the controversial surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a grave robber, young Dr. Black studies at Philadelphia&;s esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world&;s most celebrated mythological beasts&;mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs&;were in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind?   The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from a childhood spent exhuming corpses through his medical training, his travels with carnivals, and the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black&;s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray&;s Anatomy for mythological beasts&;dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus&;all rendered in meticulously detailed anatomical illustrations. You need only look at these images to realize they are the work of a madman. The Resurrectionist tells his story. Read more