Richard Fallon
@richardfallon.bsky.social
Scholar of Earth's history in literature and culture. Research Associate in Natural History Humanities at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge ([email protected]). Author of "Contesting Earth's History" and "Reimagining Dinosaurs".
The paperback edition of this 2015 anthology of neo-Challenger short stories seems to be significantly rarer even than the special large 1912/1914 edition of The Lost World. The latter, at least, had a print run of 1000.
November 26, 2025 at 10:55 AM
The paperback edition of this 2015 anthology of neo-Challenger short stories seems to be significantly rarer even than the special large 1912/1914 edition of The Lost World. The latter, at least, had a print run of 1000.
So I'm editing the Edinburgh Edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. Relatedly, if you're in the UK and you or your library possess the deluxe large paper British edition (1912 or 1914 versions), please let me know. It's the version with Iguanodon footprints on the cover.
November 25, 2025 at 8:02 AM
So I'm editing the Edinburgh Edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. Relatedly, if you're in the UK and you or your library possess the deluxe large paper British edition (1912 or 1914 versions), please let me know. It's the version with Iguanodon footprints on the cover.
Now that's a dustjacket. As other illustrators of Arthur Conan Doyle stories have recognised, you don't miss the chance to depict a seance unicorn.
November 23, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Now that's a dustjacket. As other illustrators of Arthur Conan Doyle stories have recognised, you don't miss the chance to depict a seance unicorn.
This is rare content: the beady eye of Diplodocus carnegii, as interpreted by the Reverend H. N. Hutchinson in 1916. #FossilFriday, as far as I'm concerned.
November 21, 2025 at 8:05 AM
This is rare content: the beady eye of Diplodocus carnegii, as interpreted by the Reverend H. N. Hutchinson in 1916. #FossilFriday, as far as I'm concerned.
Tonight at the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social I'll be showing a very special dinosaur: one of the Diplodocus models produced by H. N. Hutchinson in 1916 — something I discuss in my book Reimagining Dinosaurs. Lots of other fun things here tonight, including a conversation with @jackdashby.bsky.social.
November 20, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Tonight at the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social I'll be showing a very special dinosaur: one of the Diplodocus models produced by H. N. Hutchinson in 1916 — something I discuss in my book Reimagining Dinosaurs. Lots of other fun things here tonight, including a conversation with @jackdashby.bsky.social.
Just witnessed the ceremonial unrolling of some beautiful and often rather intriguing geological wall posters at the @theul.bsky.social. Here's a selection.
November 20, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Just witnessed the ceremonial unrolling of some beautiful and often rather intriguing geological wall posters at the @theul.bsky.social. Here's a selection.
It's a darn shame this LoC scan is in black and white. Inspired by geologist Dorothy Wyckoff, George Eckhardt talks about how 'The Huge Dinosaurs of North America 100,000,000 Years Ago Not Drab Nightmares But Fantasies of Nature Brilliant as Butterflies' (Detroit Evening Times, 12 April 1942).
November 19, 2025 at 10:21 AM
It's a darn shame this LoC scan is in black and white. Inspired by geologist Dorothy Wyckoff, George Eckhardt talks about how 'The Huge Dinosaurs of North America 100,000,000 Years Ago Not Drab Nightmares But Fantasies of Nature Brilliant as Butterflies' (Detroit Evening Times, 12 April 1942).
Robert Parr Whitfield's illustration of (what was then called) Graptolithus octobrachiatus, engraved by James Duthie. Part of James Hall's classic Graptolites of the Quebec Group (1865). A 10/10 graptolite and there's a lot of competition.
November 19, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Robert Parr Whitfield's illustration of (what was then called) Graptolithus octobrachiatus, engraved by James Duthie. Part of James Hall's classic Graptolites of the Quebec Group (1865). A 10/10 graptolite and there's a lot of competition.
If you want to bear witness to a perverse experiment, here's the de-silentised 2005 German dub of The Lost World, which removes all intertitles and hastily dubs in all the dialogue. Thought colourisation was offensive? Try this on for size!
November 15, 2025 at 8:55 AM
If you want to bear witness to a perverse experiment, here's the de-silentised 2005 German dub of The Lost World, which removes all intertitles and hastily dubs in all the dialogue. Thought colourisation was offensive? Try this on for size!
Turns out specialisation in human affairs and scholarship got so extreme in Germany by 1889 that people barely even bothered to write poetry anymore. Or so claimed Robert Spence Watson, rather tenuously, in an 1889 talk on 'Wordsworth's Relations to Science'.
November 14, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Turns out specialisation in human affairs and scholarship got so extreme in Germany by 1889 that people barely even bothered to write poetry anymore. Or so claimed Robert Spence Watson, rather tenuously, in an 1889 talk on 'Wordsworth's Relations to Science'.
Disillusioned to learn that the famously terrifying lost 'Spider Pit' scene from King Kong (1933) was almost certainly never even filmed, although models were made. Clearly I knew enough to know there was a lost Spider Pit scene in Kong, but hadn't looked into it enough to know there also wasn't.
November 13, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Disillusioned to learn that the famously terrifying lost 'Spider Pit' scene from King Kong (1933) was almost certainly never even filmed, although models were made. Clearly I knew enough to know there was a lost Spider Pit scene in Kong, but hadn't looked into it enough to know there also wasn't.
A final handful of leaves on the Ginkgo biloba in Queen's Park, Chesterfield. Planted in the early 1980s.
November 9, 2025 at 12:58 PM
A final handful of leaves on the Ginkgo biloba in Queen's Park, Chesterfield. Planted in the early 1980s.
You can find my piece on the Hollow Earth in this month's @historytoday.com, alongside Kublai Khan, the National Smoke Abatement Society, and the Battle of Baku.
November 8, 2025 at 9:34 AM
You can find my piece on the Hollow Earth in this month's @historytoday.com, alongside Kublai Khan, the National Smoke Abatement Society, and the Battle of Baku.
The dedication of this Pelican book — which has been described by some as 'eminently readable' — may be of interest to fans of Breaking Bad.
November 7, 2025 at 12:49 PM
The dedication of this Pelican book — which has been described by some as 'eminently readable' — may be of interest to fans of Breaking Bad.
A powerful bookplate.
November 6, 2025 at 3:55 PM
A powerful bookplate.
Stumbled into this unusually literal-minded (and suspiciously Victorian-looking) conception of the geologic column as an ionic column constructed out of fossils. It comes from the tear-out sign-up form for two 1983 London conferences on creationism. The ichthyosaur paddle is a neat touch.
November 5, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Stumbled into this unusually literal-minded (and suspiciously Victorian-looking) conception of the geologic column as an ionic column constructed out of fossils. It comes from the tear-out sign-up form for two 1983 London conferences on creationism. The ichthyosaur paddle is a neat touch.
So you can, just about, stand a small moka pot on two prongs of a gas hob if the four are too widely spaced out. But may God have mercy on your soul.
November 4, 2025 at 7:54 AM
So you can, just about, stand a small moka pot on two prongs of a gas hob if the four are too widely spaced out. But may God have mercy on your soul.
Does anyone know where the Iguanodon footprints found in the Greensand near Arthur Conan Doyle's house in May 1909, and which ended up on display in his billard room, are today? I suspect they remained with the family, but there are a lot of potential museums they could have ended up in.
October 31, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Does anyone know where the Iguanodon footprints found in the Greensand near Arthur Conan Doyle's house in May 1909, and which ended up on display in his billard room, are today? I suspect they remained with the family, but there are a lot of potential museums they could have ended up in.
They say palaeontology is hard but I just found this well-preserved Compsognathus near my office in central Cambridge.
October 29, 2025 at 3:24 PM
They say palaeontology is hard but I just found this well-preserved Compsognathus near my office in central Cambridge.
Another excellent Fitzwilliam Museum piece: Édouard Vuillard, Woman Reading in the Reeds (1909).
October 29, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Another excellent Fitzwilliam Museum piece: Édouard Vuillard, Woman Reading in the Reeds (1909).
I've got an article in November's @historytoday.com on the remarkably durable hypothesis that Earth is hollow, from Halley to Symmes to underground feminist utopias to UFOs. You know the drill — to the centre of the Earth (I've probably used that one before).
October 28, 2025 at 8:16 AM
I've got an article in November's @historytoday.com on the remarkably durable hypothesis that Earth is hollow, from Halley to Symmes to underground feminist utopias to UFOs. You know the drill — to the centre of the Earth (I've probably used that one before).
The mistletoe outside Churchill College.
October 27, 2025 at 9:00 AM
The mistletoe outside Churchill College.
Some things that struck me at the Fitzwilliam Museum: The Tortoise (1940) by Nat Leeb, an enviable 1930s coffee set by Moorcroft Pottery, and unusually tasteful Coronation mug by Ravilious.
October 25, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Some things that struck me at the Fitzwilliam Museum: The Tortoise (1940) by Nat Leeb, an enviable 1930s coffee set by Moorcroft Pottery, and unusually tasteful Coronation mug by Ravilious.
Probably uncontroversial Sherlock-Holmes-related opinion: if you cut between the two plots, rather than recounting the American plot only after the Holmes ones, and if you revealed each plot's big twist around the same time at the climax, The Valley of Fear would make a damn fine film adaptation.
October 25, 2025 at 7:08 AM
Probably uncontroversial Sherlock-Holmes-related opinion: if you cut between the two plots, rather than recounting the American plot only after the Holmes ones, and if you revealed each plot's big twist around the same time at the climax, The Valley of Fear would make a damn fine film adaptation.
This Hyphantaenia chemungensis bursting out of the plate. looks like an architectural fantasy by Piranesi. Drawn by G. B. Simpson and lithographed by Philip Ast for James Hall & J. M. Clarke's A Memoir on the Paleozoic Reticulate Sponges Constituting the Family Dictyospongidae (1898). #FossilFriday
October 24, 2025 at 7:10 AM
This Hyphantaenia chemungensis bursting out of the plate. looks like an architectural fantasy by Piranesi. Drawn by G. B. Simpson and lithographed by Philip Ast for James Hall & J. M. Clarke's A Memoir on the Paleozoic Reticulate Sponges Constituting the Family Dictyospongidae (1898). #FossilFriday