Large print book
The signature of all things
Call Number
- LARGE TYPE FICTION GILB (CEN)
Edition
Large print edition.
Publication Information
Waterville, Maine : Thorndike Press, 2013.
Physical Description
883 pages (large print) ; 23 cm.
Summary
Henry Whittaker is 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 daughter, Alma, inherits both his money and his brilliant mind, ultimately becoming a botanist of considerable gifts. 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.