Resigned to spinsterhood, ashamed and tormented by her erotic desires, Alma finds a late-in-life soul mate in Ambrose Pike, a talented botanical illustrator and spiritualist. Despite her wealth and education, Alma is a woman, and a plain one at that, two facts that circumscribe her opportunities. Born in 1800, Alma learns Latin and Greek, understands the natural world, and reads everything in sight. In more detail, the story follows Henry’s daughter, Alma. The story begins with Henry Whittaker, at first poor on the fringes of England’s Kew Gardens, but in the end the richest man in Philadelphia.
It has an omniscient narrator who can deploy (never heavy-handedly) a significant amount of research into the interconnected fields of late 18th- and early 19th-century botany, botanical drawing, spiritual inquiry, exploration, and, eventually, the development of the theory of evolution. The Signature of All Things is a big, old-fashioned story that spans continents and a century.
After 13 years as a memoirist, Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) has returned to fiction, and clearly she’s reveling in all its pleasures and possibilities.
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