1
/
of
2
Bookworm Fantasy
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Regular price
R 50.00
Regular price
R 80.00
Sale price
R 50.00
Unit price
/
per
Couldn't load pickup availability
501 pages, Paperback
23cm x 15cm
Goodreads Rating: 3.87 * 115,495 ratings * 13,249 reviews
Genres: Historical Fiction/Nature/Adult Fiction
***Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Historical Fiction (2013)***
In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma's research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction — into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist — but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.
Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad.
Share
