I picked this book to read because it was written by Elizabeth Gilbert. Since I never got around to reading “Eat, Pray, Love,” I thought “The Signature of All Things” would be similar. Not even close.
Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century and continuing through most of the nineteenth, this is the story of the Whittaker family. Henry Whittaker was the son of a poor orchardman who worked at the Kew Gardens in London. Henry through sheer determination, luck, and skill, becomes one of the wealthiest men in Philadelphia. He makes his fortune by importing rare plants and medicinal flowers to America.
In 1800, his wife Beatrix gives birth to a daughter. Alma Whittaker inherits her father’s love of plants. She spends her entire life studying and cultivating mosses. She is a woman who was born into an age when women were not accepted into the world of science. But Alma is gifted with a great intellect and is driven to learn everything there is about the field of bryology, the study of mosses.
Alma is unlucky in love. She marries in her late forties to a younger man. Ambrose Pike, a talented artist and botanist, seems to be a perfect match for Alma. But Ambrose cannot fulfill her desires. Unable to accept the man he is, she has her father send him to their plantation in Tahiti. After his death, she travels to Tahiti to try to understand this man. In the end, she learns about how much she values life.
Gilbert has created such an intricate, vivid story that I was sure it was based on an actual family. But the Whittakers and most of the people they become involve with are all creations of her imagination. “The Signature of All Things” is a fascinating story peopled with scientists, abolitionists, missionaries, geniuses and those who are mad. But ultimately it is about a woman with a fierce desire to know about the world in which she lives.