The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

Alma finds Prudence to be less intelligent and does not spend much time in sisterly behaviors. Alma resents her new sister, Prudence, because she is beautiful. As Alma grows, she becomes highly educated, developing a love in botany that will shape her entire life.Īlma has a quiet childhood that is altered when her parents adopt the young girl of a gardener and his promiscuous wife. Alma’s father, an uneducated botanist who built his wealth with pharmaceutical plants, is an adventurous man who teaches Alma that there are no limits to life with the right amount of ambition.

The Signature of All Things is a novel of self-discovery that takes the main character and the reader on a journey that will leave their lives forever altered.Īlma Whittaker is the only biological child of Henry and Beatrix Whittaker. In time, Alma has an epiphany about the fight for survival seen in all things, from mosses to human beings but, she misses her chance for fame when another scientist publishes the same theories before her. However, after a brief, unsatisfying marriage to a gifted artist, Alma sets out into the world in an attempt to understand her husband. Alma spends most of her life in seclusion on the family estate, unmarried and alone. Alma has inherited her father’s love of botany, but lacks his sense of adventure. In this novel, Alma Whittaker is the unattractive daughter of an adventurous botanist who had set out to be better than his father before him. The Signature of All Things is a sweeping generational novel by writer Elizabeth Gilbert.

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert