To the slightly unsettling images of the developing harpy...
To the fantastical beauty of the mermaids...
The entire volume is filled with an unnatural sort of wonder. As I said, the images alone are haunting enough, but there is more. Oh, yes. There is more.
Dr. Spencer Black did not have the traditional upbringing. Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1851 and raised by a father who was a respected professor of anatomy surely had its merits. However, it also came with certain...costs. Spencer and his elder brother, Bernard, began assisting their father with collecting cadavers (i.e. grave robbing) as young boys. Their mother had not survived giving birth to Spencer and one can only imagine this made a great difference in the way they were brought up. Bernard, after all, had three years with his loving mother. Perhaps, that is what made the difference. Nature versus nurture. Who knows?
Both boys studied at the Medical Arts College of Boston before the passing of their father. Both enrolled in Philadelphia Academy of Medicine upon moving in with their aunt and uncle after. This seems to be where the similarities end. Bernard's interests centered on the natural sciences, history, fossils, etc., while Spencer appeared to take after their father. His excellence gained him fame as "one of the most promising prodigies in the country". He developed an obsession with the human body and formed a theory that perhaps things that were seen as deformities were actually the body trying to rebirth certain features lost by evolution in an attempt to return to its perfect form. Talented as he was, this theory was not met with the enthusiasm Black hoped for.
His career and personal life endured many ups and downs. Marriage, birth, loss, criticism. Eventually, Dr. Black was ostracized from the respectable medical community. Following a visit to a local carnival and the discovery therein of a specimen he believed confirmed his theory, Black became part of a traveling side show, showcasing his "works" and theories of anatomy. and devoted himself to bringing his theory to life. Literally. Much like Dr. Frankenstein, Black took what he needed from the sources available to him to create the visions he so much believed in. Things that should never have been wrought were shaped in a secluded laboratory in the woods. Where no one would hear the screams. In a letter to his brother Bernard, Spencer's wife Elise wrote this: "...dead animals, bloody animals, living in cages, dying or soon to be dead, or worse." When even Bernard could not convince Spencer to cease his experiments, Elise set fire to the laboratory and nearly lost her life. It may have been better for her if she had.
No one was off limits where Dr. Spencer Black's experiments were concerned. The family beagle, his wife, even his own son. He bent and twisted the laws of nature in ways most would shudder to even consider. Where he was once respected, he was now feared and hated. A life that had seemed so full of promise was spiraling out of control. In 1908, Black entered into negotiations with a New York publishing firm for the publication of his masterpiece, The Codex Extinct Animalia, which appears at the end of the book. Only six copies were printed before Black inexplicably withdrew the project and disappeared.
Fascinating, disturbing, beautiful, unsettling, macabre. Whatever you wish to call it, this is a work you won't soon forget. I'll leave you with a few more images and trust your curiosity will do the rest.
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