ANCIENT MONSTERS: MUSEUM GUIDES VERSUS POPULAR LITERATURE AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

At the turn of the twentieth century several popular books on fossil marine reptiles were published. Some had egregiously mistaken images. This paper compares several late nineteenth and early twentieth century popular books on paleontology, specifically as to images of various fossil marine reptiles in restoration. Works by H. N. Hutchinson, including Extinct Monsters (1892) and Extinct Monsters and Creatures of Other Days (1910) are compared to contemporary museum guide books. The paper explores the continuing use of anatomically incorrect images of fossil marine reptiles at the turn of the twentieth century. It explores why such incorrect images persisted in popular works by Hutchinson and others and how museum guide books and other scientific works helped to change these incorrect images.