The life and writings of Dr. Spencer Black : -- 1851-1868: childhood -- 1869: The Academy of Medicine -- 1870: Ward C -- 1871-1877: Marriage and transformation -- 1878: the fawn child -- 1879-1887: the American carnival -- 1888-1908: The human renaissance.

The codex extinct animalia : -- Sphinx alatus -- Siren oceanus -- Satyrus hircinus -- Minotaurus asterion -- Ganesha orientis -- Chimaera incendiarius -- Canis hades -- Pegasus gorgonis -- Draconis orientis -- Centaurus caballus -- Harpy erinyes.

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. -- Publisher description