Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis

Before Darwin, before Audubon, there was Maria Sibylla Merian.

This work of narrative nonfiction introduces Maria Sibylla Merian, an artist turned naturalist known for her botanical illustrations and a true pioneer for women in science. Born just sixteen years after Galileo proclaimed that the earth orbited the sun, at the age of fifty she sailed from Europe to the New World on a solo scientific expedition to study insect metamorphosis—an unheard-of journey for any naturalist at that time, much less a woman.

When she returned, she produced a book that secured her reputation, only to have it savaged in the nineteenth century by scientists who disdained the work of “amateurs.”

Exquisitely written and illustrated, Chrysalis takes us from golden-age Amsterdam to the Surinam tropics to modern laboratories where Merian’s insights fuel a new branch of biology. Kim Todd brings to life a seventeenth-century woman whose boldness and vision would still be exceptional today.

This landmark biography reveals:

A Woman Against the Odds: Follow a self-taught artist and naturalist who, at age fifty, undertook a solo scientific expedition to the jungles of Surinam—a feat unheard of for any man of her time, let alone a woman. The Birth of Entomology: Discover the story of one of the first people to document the full life cycle of insects, whose meticulous field studies laid the groundwork for modern ecology. Art and Science: Explore the intersection of meticulous scientific observation and exquisite artistic talent through stunning botanical illustrations that captured the natural world with unprecedented accuracy. A Forgotten Legacy: Uncover the dramatic life of a visionary whose groundbreaking work was celebrated, then dismissed by later scientists, and is now being recognized for its true genius.