The Resurrectionist: The Lost Works of Dr. Spencer Black is a 2013 fiction book by author E.B. Hudspeth. The book professes to be a biography of a doctor in Gilded Age-era Philadelphia who believes that creatures supposedly only of myth are linked to humanity's evolutionary history and goes to great lengths to prove it, as well as a book he written on his creations and theories, the Codex Extinct Animalia.
The Book provides examples of:
- All Myths Are True: Spencer Black believed it at least.
- Artistic License – Biology: Dr. Black's theories on evolutionary biology are very wrong, even by the standards of the mid-to-late 19th century. It’s ultimately deconstructed, as he’s all but laughed out of the scientific community for his nonsensical theories and ends up turning to the freak show circuit to show off his creations.
- Body Horror: When the subject of the book is a medical doctor specialising in malformities and starts assembling mythical creatures out of cadavers, this is bound to crop up. It culminates in him mutilating the family dog by bisecting it and surgically attaching its front half to the bottom half of a rooster, an act that finally turns his surviving family against him for good. Elise’s later burns are also quite revolting to read about.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: It's made explicitly clear that Dr. Black is a gifted surgeon and did help many of his patients. Unfortunately, his personal fascinations outweighed the good he did.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Spencer Black is one of these, though he’s less about furthering evolution and more about trying to recapture humanity’s supposedly-lost origins by contorting people and animals into facsimiles of mythical creatures.
- Fauns and Satyrs: One of the subjects Dr. Black studies. One chapter is dedicated to the cadaver of a hoofed man Dr. Black finds in a sideshow that sparks his theories and obsession.
- The Freakshow: After being rejected by the scientific community, Black decides to take his creations on the road in the form of a travelling show dubbed “The Human Renaissance”. It goes surprisingly well despite waves of revulsion, controversy and even mobs after his head...at least until one of his beasts gets loose and mauls a patron, forcing him to end the show.
- Harping on About Harpies: Harpies do play a sizable role as one of Black's interest, in particular his throry of human mutations being Genetic Memory. He in particular grafts wings on a young girl born without limbs to create such. Meanwhile, not only is a harpy skeleton on the cover, but its the subject of the last chapter.
- Mad Scientist: Spencer Black is absolutely this. What else can you call a man who believes that All Myths Are True and is desperately trying to recreate the creatures featured in them?
- Mercy Kill: After being shown the dog-rooster beast, Black’s wife Elise ends up shooting it in the head with a pistol to put the poor creature out of its misery.
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: One chapter in the Codex Extinct Animalia is about them, with the book and Dr. Black lamenting how its mismatched elements would appear to lead to many disadvantages.
- Riddling Sphinx: A chaptter on the sphinx marks the start of the Codex Extinct Animalia, which the book suggests is an allusion to this trope.
- Uncertain Doom: Spencer Black simply vanishes one day, with his ultimate fate never revealed outside of some final letters to his brother Bernard implying that he turned his wife into a harpy and expressing regret for how he alienated his family.
