Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party: How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World by Edward Dolnick

Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party: How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World Reviews

• 
  Faith

  I thought that this book did a good job of introducing the characters involved at the beginning of the dinosaur craze. Some were quite eccentric. They had to grapple with fitting those huge bones into their strict and literal religious concepts. It resulted in some peculiar theories. Unable to accept the notion that God would create these creatures just to have them become extinct, someone proposed that God just created the old bones for us to find and scattered them about. The book ends when Darwin comes along and shakes everyone’s world.
  
  This book was a little repetitious and not as captivating as I had hoped. I love dinosaurs and have read other books about the early days of paleontology, so this wasn’t entirely new to me. The book has illustrations, end notes and an extensive bibliography.
  
  I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
• 
  Kristy Johnston

  This historical nonfiction novel follows multiple people in the Victorian era in their pursuit of finding and identifying fossils primarily dinosaurs during a time that most people could never imagine that such creatures were not myth and actually roamed the earth. I found it to be a good general overview of the topic which culminates with a famous dinner thrown on New Year’s Eve 1853 by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, a sculptor commissioned to create life size replicas of newly discovered dinosaurs, also depicted on the cover and used for the title.
  
  The beginning of the book primarily focuses on the fossil collector Mary Anning, known for early findings and identification of ichthyosaur and plesiosaur skeletons, though men were often attributed with these discoveries as well as many of her other accomplishments. I first became intrigued by Anning when I read the historical fiction novel Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier and was pleased to read about this fascinating primarily self-educated woman making fascinating discoveries in a world where only men are recognized. Other notable figures followed and recognized for contributions over the course of the story include William Buckland, Gideon Mantell, Richard Owen and many more.
  
  I found the story of the discovery and realization of dinosaur bones to be an interesting read. This was a lot for the common man to process, but especially for the actual scientists as most educated scientists of the time were also theologians. The mere existence of these creatures, much less the idea of extinction, went against most of their beliefs in the creation of the world. Reconciling their existence along with the other huge discoveries in science and technology at the time made for some intriguing theories.
  
  Recommended for a general overview of the fossil collector craze of Victorian times and the interesting historical theories presented for their existence.
  
  Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for a copy provided for an honest review.
  
• 
  Angie Boyter

  A delightful and highly informative blend of history, paleontology, and natural history
  I can’t remember the last time I read a book that was such fun to read that also taught me so much! Most people today find fossils fascinating, but Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party explores the early days of fossil discovery and interpretation when the concept was perhaps even more fascinating but also highly contentious.
  Although I learned a lot about paleontology and fossil discovery, this is primarily a work of history, and it is not surprising that it has a large cast of “characters”, a term I put in quotes because so many of the people involved were, not surprisingly, rather colorful and controversial, like George Cuvier, Gideon Mantell, William Paley, and Sir Charles Lyell. It was interesting to learn that a number of highly significant early finds were made by a poor, uneducated woman named Mary Anning who lived in Lyme Regis although her gender and social class kept her from being recognized appropriately at the time; she had to sell most of her fossils to support herself and her family. There were interesting personal items about relevant people, like the sad fact that the great naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who is responsible for our modern method of classifying plants and animals, had a stroke in his old age and could no longer remember any of the names he had assigned.
  There is extensive exploration of how the fossil discoveries challenged many religious beliefs and the many ways people tried to reconcile them… or simply rejected either the science or the conventional religious teaching of the day. This was especially relevant since many of the scientists were also clergymen.
  There was also discussion of other areas of natural science relevant to the main paleontology theme such as the unusual configuration of elephant skulls and the shape of the elements that carry colors in today’s birds, a shape also found in fossils.
  The quality of the writing in Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party was as enjoyable as the content. There was a lot of material new to me in the book, and several times I made a Kindle note wondering “how did they know that”; a paragraph or two later Dolnick would tell me! He also has a real knack for expressing his ideas : “discovering is not merely finding something; discovering is finding and understanding that you’ve found something.” I appreciated the touches of humor, such as when he describes how paleontologist Richard Owen’s theories are about to be seriously challenged and says, ”Owen was at center stage, basking in applause….He took a step forward….He didn’t see he was about to topple into the orchestra pit.” There are also many excellent quotes from a wide variety of other sources, even poetry by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
  Whether your interest is the history or the science or just an enjoyable read, you might want to invite some Dinosaurs to your Dinner Party!
  I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley and Scribner
  
• 
  Nancy

  My favorite dinosaur was stegosaurus. I had a model stegosaurus on the shelf next to my horse models. Our son’s favorite dinosaur was T-Rex. He had a hundred model dinosaurs if he had one. At age seven, he was so well read on dinosaurs that he amazed a friend who had been on digs in Montana and had amassed an impressive fossil collection. We all thought our son would grow up to become a paleontologist.
  
  What kid hasn’t gone through a dinosaur stage? Author Edward Dolnick had a dinosaur collection, and like our son, drew imagined “epics” of dinosaur battles.
  
  Dolnick wondered what people thought when dinosaur fossils were first being discovered. His deep research is evident in this book.
  
  Dolnick first gives readers a firm understanding of Victorian Age society, religion, and science. His writing is entertaining and the concepts easy to grasp. Then he turns to the people who discovered, and interpreted, fossils.
  
  Dolnick begins with Mary Anning, an impoverished girl who scoured the cliffs of Lyme for fossils to sell to tourists. It was dangerous work. Mary became an expert on her finds. Sadly, as a woman with no influence or class rank, she was sidelined.
  
  Natural History was a Victorian fad. They loved to collect everything, including plants, shells, butterflies, and fossils. Any man with a few dollars in his pocket and social rank became a fossil hunter.
  
  Geologist William Buckland discovered Megalosaurus. He also proposed that fossilized animals were killed in the biblical flood until a find made him reject his own theory and he embraced Louis Agassiz’s theory of ice ages. It was glaciers, not floods, that had killed these animals off. Cuvier also thought that catastrophes had killed these animals.
  
  The Victorians contorted scientific discoveries to fit into their Christian worldview. The discovery of dinosaur bones had people scrambling to conform science to faith. They imagined the fossils had been unicorns, Goliaths, and dragons. Fossils were not really old, they just looked it, “like pre-distressed jeans.” Mammoths were not a separate creature, they were just big elephants. Thomas Jefferson, who had a huge collection of fossils, was sure that the wilds of America would reveal that these animals were not extinct, but alive and still living in America. Jefferson believed that creation was a perfect machine and if one cog or link disappeared, it would all fall apart. (We were priviledged to view Jefferson’s personal collection at the Franklin Institute!)
  
  But new discoveries challenged the old paradigm. The “possibility that a species could go extinct was to suggest that God’s creation was flawed,” that God made imperfect creatures, and that perhaps the world was not made for mankind.
  
  These colorful characters and the rivalry between them make for great reading. Buckland was a strange gourmand, trying out every creature at the dinner table. (His guests were not always amused.) Gideon Mantell went into the field and amassed a huge fossil collection, but economics forced him to sell, while Richard Owen, who never put spade to rock to find a single fossil, claimed the spotlight as the foremost dinosaur expert. Dolnick compares Owen to Uriah Heep in appearance, and as “brilliant, backstabbing, charming and manipulative.” It was Owen who came up with the name ‘dinosaur.’
  
  The book closes with a famous dinner in the Crystal Palace where diners sat inside a replica of a dinosaur. Those crazy Victorians.
  
  When Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859, he started a revolution in science, proving that species did change and die off. Owen was ‘banished to history’s attic.”
  
  It is an immensely entertaining book while also informative.
  
  I previously read the author’s book The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone.
  
  Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
• 
  Ula Tardigrade

  What a delight! While the story of the discovery of dinosaurs and the first fossil hunters may be fairly well known, the author of this book takes a fresh and novel approach to the subject. His focus is not on paleontology itself, or even on the historical events, but on the mindset of the scientists who made these discoveries and the general public who marveled at them. For me, it was an eye-opening experience.
  
  As Edward Dolnick writes, “We would perk up if someone showed up with incontrovertible proof that aliens had traveled from one of those stars and paid us a visit. A video of an alien army or a bit of alien corpse that matched nothing on Earth would be hard to dismiss. For our forebears in the nineteenth century, bones and skeletons from fierce, extinct creatures served as that sort of impossible-to-explain-away evidence”.
  
  The challenge was that "in the early 1800s, science and religion were merged in a way that scarcely exists today, and religion was the dominant partner in that union”. As the mounting scientific evidence became less and less consistent with the teachings of the Bible, it caused a dramatic shift that created our modern secular world.
  
  This is no ordinary history book. The author skillfully jumps around the timeline, diving into different topics and showing people’s approach to them from antiquity to the present day. He does this with such panache and wit that I laughed constantly. Even when he recalls familiar events and personalities, he presents them in a new light, peppering his account with a variety of surprising facts (did you know that Leibniz proudly displayed a unicorn skeleton? Or that Thomas Jefferson was "obsessed" with incognitum, as mastodons were called at the time?)
  
  It is also worth noting that there is another interesting forthcoming book (“
  Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the Battle Between Science and Religion” by Michael Taylor –
  my review here!) that focuses on similar issues, but since it takes a different approach and covers a longer period, it is complementary rather than redundant.
  
  Thanks to the publisher, Scribner, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.
• 
  Logan Kedzie

  At one point in the book, the author uses an analogy of a teenagers bedroom to explain stratigraphy, likening the layers of discarded clothing to that of the Earth's strata, but noting that geologic forces may make the specific progression of time unclear, analogizing that in particular to the resulting chaos created by a happy golden retriever chasing a tennis ball thrown into the room.
  
  This analogy works both as an illustration of the book, Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, but also an analogy for the book. The author writes as thought there was a non-fiction
  Bulwer-Lytton award, and I am here for it. It is excitable, bombastic, and more florid than an adulterer's apology to his wife. But it feels authentic. The author is that excited about dinosaurs and dinosaur history, and so are you. Yes, you, reading this, trying to be all cool and detached. You know this speaks to your inner teenager, if not your inner Golden. It is infectious.
  
  It is also chaotic. The title of the book refers to the party given by Benjamin Hawkins that took place inside an iguanadon model created for the occasion, as Hawkins was the artist creating what we now know as the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs and this was his shop. The party is described in soaring detail as the conclusion, not climax, of the book. The subtitle of the book "how an eccentric group of Victorians discovered prehistoric creatures and accidentally upended the world," is in contrast to the stated original question of the book in its acknowledgements, which describes it as a history of science of the discovery of dinosaurs, where the book itself is neither, or possibly both. It is interested in the Victorian greats like Anning and Owen, but stops short of a biographic history, and includes a long discussion on earlier scientific research, such as with ancient (usually not dinosaur) bones in France and the United States, but also Mayor's theories on Ancient Greek interpretations of ancient bones (again, usually not dinosaur, and also
  criticized). For a book about the realization of Deep Time, it is adverse to chronology.
  
  It is a mess, but it works, as each (short) chapter tends to work as a stand-alone document. Frustratingly, for me at any rate, the most interesting parts are those related most clearly with the subtitle, and the question of what as a matter of ideology set the Victorians apart in their relationship with scientific examination, the impulse towards collection, and the bifurcated interest in God and the natural world as either in opposition or in concert. I am suspect about this as an idea, but admittedly that is why it is the most attractive to contemplate. Here that I find the most to criticize about the author's style. I know that as of early 2024, proper citation is become an idée fixe within the commentator class and a culture war issue without. I am absolutely not accusing Dolnick of any misdoing. But the book has a sort of inconsistency in its methodology of citations and quotes where, in these chapters, where I am working on putting together a reading list to dive deeper, that lead to frustration and confusion on my part.
  
  And while Darwin does not show up - he is in again the author's memorable method of description the bomb under the table Hitchcock-style at the titular dinner party - I know that the descriptions of some of these figure's problems with what would be Darwinism are reductive. This is the simplified view of a lot of these ideas, which the author seems to me to acknowledge in the end notes, commonly held but also capable of a lot more elaboration, usually in some degree of rehabilitation. The focus here though is on the fun stuff. So, when I think about the ideal audience for this book, I think about the teenager from the analogy. It is a light treatment of the subject, too scattered to be a useful introduction, but fun, and the sort of thing that ought to provoke further interest and glee.
  
  Thank you to the author, Edward Dolnick, and the publisher, Scribner Books, for making the ARC available to me.
• 
  Peter Tillman

  Publisher's excerpt:
  https://lithub.com/giants-bones-fossi...
  Ca. 1763: "What we had here was plainly a pair of enormous testicles from a bygone human giant. Brookes bestowed an imposing Latin name on the fossil, Scrotum humanum."
• 
  Dawn Michelle

  The title of this book is so bombastic that it begged to be requested [and will beg to be bought off the shelves in stores] and for someone who 1. knows little [almost nothing and most of it was from Jurassic Park LOL] about dinosaurs in general, 2. loves history [especially ones featuring those crazy Victorians], and 3. loves an excellent bombastic nonfiction book more than most things, it was really a no-brainer for me and I couldn't wait to dive in.
  
  Yeah. Sigh.
  
  Did I learn anything? Yes [though not nearly as much as I wanted NOR not what I thought I was going to learn]. Was the book engaging? Welllll...mostly. There were moments when I was not engaged, close to bored [there seemed to be a lot of repetition and that got old after awhile], and I did find that I thought I had missed something as the chapter/story would abruptly end and then move on to something else in the next chapter [this became really problematic for me and I finally had to stop rewinding the audiobook to see if I missed something and just became resigned to this odd writing trait of the author's. FYI, I am not a fan. At all. ]; it disrupted the flow of the book and left me wondering just what the rest of the story was [spoiler, we never find out].
  
  While this was deeply researched [and I acknowledge the author's work here], and the writing is mostly [for me] engaging [minus the problems I had with it stated it above], it was just not enough for me and I wanted so much more.
  
  If you do not mind repetition and a somewhat chaotic read, and as long as you aren't expecting a deep-dive into the Victorian love of fossils/dinosaurs, then this is the book for you. For me, I am truly disappointed in this book that just never lives up to its truly bombastic title.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley, Edward Dolnick, and Scribner for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  neuravinci

  This book is so thoroughly researched that I'm not sure what to be more impressed by: the careful curation of knowledge or the absorbing writing. Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party is on the level of one my favorite natural history books, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, which is saying a lot.
  
  Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party is a unique blend of compelling storytelling, both a wide and small-eyed lens on history and the outcomes of events, and this immersive world of scientists, naysayers, history, science, and religion. Dolnick magically blended all these elements together to create something worth reading, and re-reading.
• 
  Anne Morgan

  If you're looking for a carefully explained, well-thoughtout, and logical, chronological explanation of how the Victorians accidentally created paleontology, discovered dinosaurs, and rethought everything they knew about the world- this is not that book.
  
  If you're just interested enough in the idea of discovering dinosaurs where the world had never acknowledged them before, and wondering how Victorian science dealt with that, where any book is a good starter, then Dolnick is probably as good a start as any.
  
  I am by no means an expert on dinosaurs. But I'm a huge reader of everything related to Victorian history and hadn't come across a book devoted to describing the fossil craze of the Victorian period and how it changed the scientific thought process. So the title hooked me. From Mary Anning to William Buckland to Richard Owen, this book introduces you to English (and one or two French) who thrilled in hunting fossils or those happier in museums trying to understand fossils. It explains the original Victorian view that nature, science, and religion all fit happily together. Fossils and the startling idea of dinosaurs began to erode those views, despite how hard a few clung to them. Before Darwin threw his new explanation of evolution onto the scene, people were already prepared for the change in thinking he was suggesting.
  
  My problem wasn't the more simplistic approach Dolnick took in his explanations or way of writing. Everyone has their own style and the reader can get used to it if the story is good. It was the unbelieveable amount of repetition in the book. Read a chapter and then had to take a break for a few days? No problem, you could read the next one and not have missed anything. Different words, saying exactly the same thing. It was like he couldn't figure out what version of a chapter he liked better, so he just left them all in. Occasionally new things would come in, a new person would be introduced, etc. Then they would get the same repeat treatment, hammering away at the reader until I had to skim sections to be able to move forward at all. By the time we got to the famous dinner party in the Crystal Palace dinosaur statues I was pretty numb to all of it.
  
  Overall, a fantastic idea for a research idea and book, very poorly and repetitiously executed. Definitely made me not want to pick up another book by this author, but did make me interested enough to look through his biblioghraphy to see if anyone had done a better job of writing on the subject.
  
  I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review
• 
  Andi

  Let's face it, most historical accounts possess the same soporific qualities as an elderly professor's droning lecture. Edward Dolnick however, in his work *Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party*, proves a delightful exception. This historical adventure dives into the fascinating era of early paleontology, when Victorians stumbled upon evidence of a world so fantastical, it defied their carefully constructed worldview.
  
  Dolnick's prose is a captivating blend of scientific rigor and delightful wit. The tales of eccentric (and at times egotistical) paleontologists such as Mary Anning, William Buckland, and Richard Owen are not merely informative, but immensely entertaining. One might easily envision this trio as characters in a particularly quirky costume drama; Anning, a woman defying social expectations with her sharp eye for fossils, and the flamboyantly zealous Buckland, whose gastronomic experiments on the animal kingdom are almost as unsettling as the strange creatures his science reveals.
  
  What truly excels in this work is Dolnick's ability to convey the profound ripple effects these discoveries sent through the bedrock of Victorian society. The concept of extinction, of an Earth not meticulously designed for its current inhabitants, was both bewildering and unsettling. Yet, the sheer grandeur of these vanished prehistoric beasts ignited a flame of wonder, a sense that the planet's history stretched far beyond human comprehension.
  
  Naturally, as with any scientific endeavor, the road is riddled with missteps and false leads—and Dolnick doesn't shy from these either. There's a subtle humor in witnessing once-revered scientists cling to theories that appear comically inaccurate from our vantage point. But this isn't mere mockery; it illuminates the very nature of scientific progress.
  
  If you harbor any lingering notions of paleontology as a dry recitation of species names and geological strata, *Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party* will shatter them with gusto. This book is as much about the thrill of discovery as it is a testament to the human capacity for embracing a universe far more expansive and strange than ever imagined. I would highly recommend it to the discerning reader – although one word of caution: you might find yourself craving a roast iguanodon after turning the final page.
• 
  Andrea Wenger

  In the early 1800s, the discovery of dinosaur fossils shattered the world’s understanding of natural history. The unearthing of giant bones in England forced Victorians to confront the idea of extinct creatures and a world far older and less stable than they imagined. This book reveals the early days of paleontology, as scientists pieced together the story of dinosaurs and revolutionized our understanding of the planet’s past.
  
  This unique book stresses how the Romantic movement of the early 19th century had consequences for the rising field of paleontology during the Victorian era. The worship of nature led to resistance to the implications of the new discoveries. With all the changes of the Industrial Revolution, people clung to nature as something eternal they could rely on—and paleontology upended that sense of security.
  
  This unique convergence of historical factors helped create the binary between science and religion that remains with us today. The book is informative, fun to read, and helped me see the world in a new way.
  
  Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
• 
  Tawney

  The image of Victorians is rather stodgy, right? Stiff clothes, dark and clutttered interiors and rigid views. Regarding the history of the earth they were complacent and why not? Their faith assured that God didn’t experiment. All life was as it always had been. Then very large bones of very strange animals made their appearance. What to make of this? Today many of the explanations are good for a laugh, but the strength of this book is educating the reader on why people thought as they did and how the discovery of dinosaurs offered radical ideas as to time, extinction and humanity’s place in creation. The writing is excellent, the characters involved were fascinating and I, for one, came away with a new respect for all the Victorian citizens who read, attended lectures and exhibitions and were intrigued. Just as many of the people had left agriculture for jobs in mills and factories, they stepped from an unchangeable history into one of uncertainty.
  
  Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for a digital advanced readers copy of this book.
• 
  Shawn

  A thoroughly enjoyable read on the history of the discovery of dinosaurs and, really, of prehistory itself. Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party does not reveal new historical facts. Instead, what makes this book fascinating is the way that the author helps the reader to see the world and the unfolding of history through the eyes of those who were living it.
  I have studied biology and evolutionary biology and scientific history for decades and yet this book helped me to see the principals in the history of dinosaur discovery in a much more forgiving light for not seeing the facts that we now think of as right in front of their faces.
  Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
• 
  Samantha

  A fun and informative niche history of the Victorian dinosaur craze.
  
  Having read a fair amount on paleontology and the discovery of dinosaur bones, I was so excited to find this unique little history that focuses more on the *why* of Dinomania among Victorians than the science, and that does a wonderful job of explain this in the context of the way Victorians viewed science and discovery.
  
  I’ve read a few of Dolnick’s books prior to this one and felt they were just ok, but this one is a real gem, both in the worthiness of the subject and the way Dolnick tells it.
  
  *I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
• 
  Cara

  A delightful dinosaur book. This one, however, is less focused on the science and more on the culture and society of the scientists themselves. Delving into the way dinosaur discoveries challenged the prevailing theology of the era — and even the cultural sensibilities of the Victorians, who were largely convinced that they were the center of the universe and not a blip on the geological time scale — was really fascinating. Lots of outsized personalities and scientific debates masquerading as roasts. Really well-done and highly entertaining.
• 
  Krista | theliterateporcupine

  This was such an interesting listen and one I wasn't expecting! The past several generations have taken the prehistoric existence of dinosaurs for granted, but Victorian England had to suddenly come to terms that a world with massive animals existed before civilization. The word "dinosaur" didn't even exist until the 1800s because there was no explanation for giant rocks shaped like bones (scientists believed these to be elephants or biblical giants like Goliath).
  
  Fascinating, with brief biographies of early paleontologists you've never heard of, this Unique History is one worth reading.
• 
  Andrew

  Really liked this book and will read more by Dolnick. Highly readable social and science history about a subject and era I was not familiar with. The synthesis of history / science in the context of the Victorian era was just fascinating. Highly recommended.
• 
  Bethanyanne

  This book was so engaging
• 
  Foggygirl

  A great read about the beginnings of palaeontology in Victorian England.
• 
  Zoe

  This was a delight to read. The history was conveyed in an engaging manner that was filled with modern comparisons that were thought provoking. I was pleasantly surprised by the laugh aloud moments and by the photos included. The author did a wonderful job with this book.
• 
  Perry

  I have read many of Dolnick's books (he is my first cousin once removed) and this may have been my favorite. He often concentrates on periods in the history of science in which the proverbial apple cart got upset. This book deals with the idea that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago and the discovered fossils (often in England, it seems) called into question the biblical interpretation of history (which Dolnick enjoys poking at it - I enjoy that too). Much like The Writing of the Gods, the book is quite willing to take time to examine somewhat off topic elements, but it is richer for these discursions.