“The World-Renowned Ichthyosaurus”: A Nineteenth-Century Problematic and Its Representations (2009)
I The first edition in English of Jules Verne's Voyage au centre de la Terre (1864), published in 1871 as A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, like the original features an epic combat between two enormous marine reptiles but identifies one of them as the world-renowned ichthyosaurus.1 One of many alterations this British rendition imposes upon the second, expanded edition of Verne's novel (1867), the spurious world-renowned was added not only to heighten interest, but also, quite likely, to appeal to nationalism since ichthyosaur fossils were first identified, described, and publicized in England. The story of early ichthyosaur discoveries has been told often enough, with recent stress upon the scientific acumen and potential, once downplayed because of gender and class, of fossil collector Mary Anning.2 At Lyme Regis, Dorset---the epicenter of paleontological shocks and excitement that radiated out to Britain and beyond---beginning in 1811 Anning discovered and excavated the first fossilized ichthyosaur skeletons recognizable as an important new kind of animal.3 Her once undervalued scientific credentials, however, represent but one of the ways in which the ichthyosaur of scientific and popular imagination swam in unsettled cultural waters.
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