"A rip-roaring tale... unlike anything Gilbert has ever written... Its prose has the elegant sheen of a nineteenth-century epic, but its concerns... are essentially modern." --
The New York Times Magazine "With this novel about a young, nineteenth-century Philadelphia woman who becomes a world-renowned botanist, Gilbert shows herself to be a writer at the height of her powers." --
O, The Oprah Magazine, "
Our Favorite Reads of the Year" "The most ambitious and purely imaginative work in Gilbert's twenty-year career." --
The Wall Street Journal "Like Victor Hugo or Emile Zola, Gilbert captures something important about the wider world in
The Signature of All Things a pivotal moment in history when progress defined us in concrete ways." --
The Washington Post "A masterly tale of overflowing sensual and scientific enthusiasms in the nineteenth century." --
Time, "Top Ten Fiction Books of the Year"
"Raucously ingenious... a novel of brave and lovely ideas... I found unshackled joy on every page." --
The Chicago Tribune "Alma's extraordinary life unspools like a Jane Austen novel... Here Gilbert claims her rightful spot as one of the twenty-first century's best American writers." --
Outside "Gilbert writes so wonderfully it's impossible not to swoon... Alma's drive for personal epiphany feels absolutely contemporary." --
The Boston Globe "A beautifully written, grandly expansive historical novel... Gilbert's writing is so smart and richly drawn that it does what all the best books do: it sweeps you up."
--Entertainment Weekly "Dazzling... a big-hearted, sweeping, unforgettable novel... If you don't think science or historical fiction can be bright, funny, and engaging, this novel will quickly prove you wrong." --
The Miami Herald