The Speckled Monster - by Jennifer Lee Carrell (Paperback)

About the Book

A timely book about history's first desperate efforts to conquer smallpox, "The Speckled Monster" tells the dramatic story of two parents who dared to fight back. After barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, they flouted 18th-century medicine by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and Eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children.

Book Synopsis

The Speckled Monster tells the dramatic story of two parents who dared to fight back against smallpox. After barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, they flouted eighteenth-century medicine by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and Eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. From their heroic struggles stems the modern science of immunology as well as the vaccinations that remain our only hope should the disease ever be unleashed again.

Jennifer Lee Carrell transports readers back to the early eighteenth century to tell the tales of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, two iconoclastic figures who helped save London and Boston from the deadliest disease mankind has known.

Review Quotes

"Highly engrossing...Carrell tells the gripping story with ardor and skill." --Smithsonian

"Written in a compelling, almost novelistic voice, Carrelldetails two eighteenth-century figures who struggled valiantly against smallpox. The disease becomes a character in the book, claiming the poor, the rich, and the royal without distinction." --USA Today

About the Author

Jennifer Lee Carrell holds a Ph.D. in English and American literature from Harvard University and is the author of The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox. In addition to writing for Smithsonian magazine, Carrell has taught in the history and literature program at Harvard and has directed Shakespeare for Harvard's Hyperion Theatre Company. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.