Merpeople

People have been fascinated by merpeople since ancient times. From the sirens of Homer's Odyssey to Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid to the 1984 film Splash, myths, stories and legends of half-human half-fish creatures abound. In modern times, mermaiding has gained popularity amongst cosplayers.

In Merpeople: A Human History, Vaughn Scribner traces the long history of mermaids and mermen, taking in a wide variety of sources and 117 striking images. From film to philosophy, church halls to coffee houses, ancient myth to modern science, Scribner shows that mermaids and tritons are and always have been everywhere.

'Scribner's book is compact, richly referenced, attractively produced, and wonderfully illustrated with more than a hundred plates, many unfamiliar (to me) and in full colour. A professor at the University of Central Arkansas, he is chiefly curious about shifts in intellectual inquiry as he chronicles beliefs about mermaids, including reports of sightings, exhibitions of discovered specimens, scientists' views, and popular cultural artefacts from films to dolls... He concludes with accounts of films, advertisements, pageants, and theme parks, demonstrating growing rather than fading interest in mermaids in the present day. Yet in its revelations of the appetite for delusion among so many, even as they pursued greater understanding, it's a tale that is especially disturbing at this time of deliberate misinformation.' - Marina Warner / New York Review of Books

'Whether you fancy a quick dip or a marathon swim, this is a delightful book to splash around in, a gloriously illustrated and meticulously researched study of our closest aquatic relatives.' - Patricia Fara / Literary Review