Philadelphia, the late 1870s. A city of gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and horse-drawn carriagesand home to the controversial surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a grave robber, young Dr. Black studies at Philadelphia's esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world's most celebrated mythological beastsmermaids, minotaurs, and satyrswere in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind?The Resurrectionistoffers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from a childhood spent exhuming corpses through his medical training, his travels with carnivals, and the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black's magnum opus:The Codex Extinct Animalia, aGray's Anatomyfor mythological beastsdragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberusall rendered in meticulously detailed anatomical illustrations. You need only look at these images to realize they are the work of a madman.The Resurrectionisttells his story.