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1-Page Summary of The Signature Of All Things
Overall Summary
The Signature of All Things is a novel by Elizabeth Gilbert which tells the story of Alma Whittaker, a botanist who struggles with her life’s work. As she studies more and more about evolution, she discovers that there are many mysteries still to be solved. The book takes place in the eighteenth century when science was still young. It received critical acclaim upon publication and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Fiction.
The Signature of all Things is set in Philadelphia. It’s a book about the Whittaker family, led by Henry Whittaker, who has made his fortune from selling natural medicines. He was born into poverty and had no formal education but he became rich through hard work and perseverance. The story moves to Europe where Henry goes on dangerous expeditions for rare plants that make him more money. His goal is to find quinine, which can cure malaria.
Still, when Henry gets back from his travels, he doesn’t get any recognition for the work that he has done. He decides to set up on his own and moves to Philadelphia with his wife who gives birth to our main protagonist, Alma Whittaker. Alma is brought up to be educated and curious. She collects plant samples and studies them. She rarely meets outsiders and is very sheltered. However, all changes when Mrs Whittaker decides to adopt an orphan girl—Prudence, the daughter of a famous prostitute. Prudence is beautiful unlike Alma herself so they don’t speak much at first but she eventually strikes up a friendship with her new sister around their mutual love of plants which begin as specimens in her room before growing into something more personal…
Alma Whittaker is a young woman who lives with her father, George. She’s an introvert and has difficulty making friends, but she does make two close friends in Prudence and Retta. The three girls become good friends until Retta marries George. Alma then becomes isolated again as Mr Whittaker dies and Prudence gets married too. She focuses on her botany work for many years until Ambrose Pike comes along to save the day! He introduces himself to Alma at a spiritualist meeting that he hosts in their house, so they hit it off right away because of their shared interest in nature. They get married even though Ambrose doesn’t believe in sex because he wants to be celibate like angels are supposed to be; this is something that he doesn’t tell Alma about before they’re married (this would have been useful information!). After being disappointed by marriage yet again, Alma goes back home and continues studying moss colonies—her life’s work.
Meanwhile, Ambrose dies in Tahiti. He leaves his wife with a suitcase full of nude drawings and letters from another man. Alma understands that her husband was not only homosexual, but also had been living with this secret for years. To make matters worse, Alma learns that Prudence has always wanted to be the one who married George because she knew how much he loved him and hoped to get rid of Alma someday. When Henry dies, Prudence inherits everything and plans on leaving all the money to herself instead of giving it to her sister-in-law as promised before they left England together. In order to find out more about her lost husband’s life in Tahiti, Alma decides to go there herself and spends a year there while she finds out what happened between Ambrose and the local man who persuaded him into having sex outside of marriage (which is frowned upon by their church). She discovers that Ambrose wasn’t actually gay at all; he simply didn’t want anything sexual or physical happening outside of marriage due to his religious beliefs. However, when he did have sex with another man against his will, it caused him so much shame that he killed himself believing he no longer had any purity left inside him.
