The Signature Of All things

Book Name in English : The Signature Of All things

Alma Whittaker is born into a perfect Philadelphia winter . Her farther , Henry , is a bold and charismatic botanical explorer whose vast fortune belies his lowly beginnings as a vagrant in Sir Joseph Banks' ; s Kew Gardens and as a deck hand on Captain Cook' ; s HMS Resolution . Alma' ; s mother , a strict woman from an esteemed Dutch family , is conversant in five living languages (and two dead ones) . It is not long before Alma , an independent girl with a thirst for knowledge , comes into her own within the world of botany . But as her careful studies of moss take her deeper into the mysteries of evolution , the man she comes to love draws her in the opposite direction - towards the mystical , the spiritual , the divine . . . The signature of All Things is a big novel , about a big century . It soars across the globe from London to Tasmania , to Philadelphia , to Tahiti , to Amsterdam . Peopled with extraordinary characters - missionaries , abolitionists , adventurers , astronomers , sea captains , geniuses and the quite mad - most of all it has an unforgettable heroine in Alma Whittaker , a woman of the Enlightened Age who stands defiantly on the cusp of the modern . A writer of incandescent talent' ; Annie Proulx ' ; Gilbert has a mix of Annie Proulx and John Irving' ; - The Times ' ; A rock star author who has swept millions of women away' ; - Oprah Winfrey ' ; Gilbert has presented a superlative novel of grand ideas and broad vision' ; - The Hoopla