The seeds of life: from Aristotle to da Vinci, from shark's teeth to frogs' pants, the long and strange quest to discover where babies come from

Prologue: England in the early 1630s

Part one: Peering into the body. Onward to glory ; Hidden in deep night ; Swallowing stones and drinking dew ; Unmoored in time ; "Double, double toil and trouble" ; Door A or door B?

Part two: The search for the egg. Missing: one universe (reward to finder) ; Sharks' teeth and cows' eggs ; The egg, at last ; A world in a drop of water ; "Animals of the semen"

Part three: Russian dolls. Dolls within dolls ; The message in God's fine print ; Sea of troubles ; The rabbit woman of Godliman ; "All in pieces, all coherence gone" ; The cathedral that built itself ; A vase in silhouette

Part four: The clockwork topples and a new theory rises. Frogs in silk pants ; A drop of venom ; The craze of the century ; "I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open" ; The nose of the Sphinx ; "The game is afoot" ; Caught!