Devilfish: When giant squid ruled the northern sea

Description

The world did not truly believe in giant squid until the 1870s, when record numbers of the mysterious creatures appeared in the waters and beaches around the island of Newfoundland. Photographs that appeared in international newspapers and physical specimens sent to ivy league laboratories accomplished what eye-witness accounts had been attempting for centuries: to prove beyond doubt that giant squid are real.

Thrilling tales and images of “devilfish” spread around the globe and shaped the animal’s public image as a delightfully terrifying enigma suspended at the boundary of fable and fact. As a newly acknowledged member of the animal kingdom, the giant squid was an object for scientific study. At the same time, though, the public imagination playfully cloaked the mollusc in mystery; a real-life sea monster who had acquired many of the attributes of the Kraken and sea serpent.

Devilfish contains more than 130 images and 10 pull-out facsimile documents. They are meant in equal parts to inform and delight—to explain the remarkable history of the giant squid while building a sense of wonderment and fun. Also included are dozens of bite-sized sidebars. Consider this a pop-up book for adults, grounded in research and reaching for the wondrous!

Order today for Fall 2023 delivery

Author Bio

Jenny Higgins

Jenny Higgins works in print and film. Her latest book, Devilfish (Boulder Books, 2023), takes a playful look at the island of Newfoundland’s remarkable history with the giant squid. Well-researched and extensively illustrated, it won the Historic Sites Association’s 2024 Edward Roberts History Book Award.

Higgins is also the author of Agnes Ayre’s ABCs of Amazing Women (2019), Newfoundland in the First World War (2016), and The 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster (2014). She is a regular contributor to the Maritime History Archive’s Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Website and writes the “Archival Notes” column for Newfoundland Quarterly. Her work has been broadcast on CBC Radio and Television, and she was once Wikipedian in Residence at the Centre for Newfoundland Studies. Higgins is the winner of a Newfoundland and Labrador Book of the Year Award for Nonfiction
(2017) and a Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing (2015).

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