Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis

Written by Kim Todd

Narrated by Amélie Trufant Dawson

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

An artist turned naturalist, Merian was born just 16 years after Galileo proclaimed that the Earth orbited the sun. But at the age of 50, she sailed from Europe to South America 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 19th century by scientists who disdained the work of “amateurs.”

Chrysalis takes us from golden age Amsterdam to the Surinam tropics to modern laboratories where Merian’s insights fuel a new branch of biology. The New Yorker called it a "spellbinding biography." In it, Kim Todd brings to life a 17th century woman whose boldness and vision would still be exceptional today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kimberley Todd
• Release date: Aug 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798368981123

Kim Todd

Kim Todd is the award-winning author of several books, including Sensational: The Hidden History of America's “Girl Stunt Reporters”, Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis, and Tinkering with Eden: A Natural History of Exotic Species in America, winner of the PEN/Jerard Award and the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. Her essays and articles have appeared Smithsonian, Salon, Sierra Magazine, Orion, and Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies, among other publications. She is a member of the MFA faculty at the University of Minnesota and lives in Minneapolis with her family.