'The Making of Mr Gray's Anatomy' by Ruth Richardson is published this autumn to mark 150th anniversary of 'the Doctor's Bible'.
In London 1855, four men embarked on a project that would become one of the cornerstones of world medicine. This is the story of an extraordinary labour, and its extraordinary legacy.
The author: Henry Gray - an ambitious young physiologist, eager for medical fame, whose life was tragically cut short. The illustrator: Henry Vandyke Carter - poor, shy and meticulous, pushed into the shadows. The publishers: the Parkers, father and son, entrepreneurial, forward thinking, at the heart of London's vibrant intellectual life. The book: over 700 pages, with 363 wonderfully detailed illustrations - the fruit of 20 non-stop months of dissection, writing and drawing.
It is the story of Victorian energy and inventiveness; of poverty and class; of the rise of science and medicine. It takes us into the smart townhouses of Belgravia, the dissecting rooms of St George's hospital, and into the workhouses and mortuaries where the bodies of the poor are immortalized in Carter's engravings.
Read a sample chapter here:
Celebrating 150 years of a Publishing Phenomenon :
Gray's then ... 'The Making of Mr Gray's Anatomy' OUP
Gray's now... 'Gray's Anatomy : NEW 40th Edition'
www.elsevierhealth.com/grays
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