Elizabeth Gilbert’s Signature of All Things

GUEST: ELIZABETH GILBERT

Alma Whittacker was raised on private, sprawling grounds on the banks of the Schuylkill River in the early 1800s. The daughter of a wealthy botanical explorer who sailed with the Royal Navy’s Captain Cook, she was raised with the privilege of rare books and life’s pleasures, but she was confined to the estate, as she was her father’s chief assistant and caretaker. But her world turns around when she discovers unstudied mosses in her backyard that reveal evolutionary mysteries. Author ELIZABETH GILBERT’S new novel is “The Signature of All Things,” and the setting of the mansion is inspired by The Woodlands, an 18^th century mansion in West Philadelphia.