The Signature of All Things

A glorious sweeping novel of desire ambition and the thirst for knowledge from the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Eat Pray Love and CommittedIn 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 18th and 19th 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. But most memorable of all it is the story of Alma Whittaker who - born in the Age of Enlightenment but living well into the Industrial Revolution - bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science religion commerce and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold questing spirit of that singular time Gilbert''s wise deep and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of listeners.