Time of action: the end of the XVIII - the end of the XIX centuries. Location of the action: London and Peru, Philadelphia and Tahiti, Amsterdam and the most remote corners of the earth. A wise, deep and exciting novel about a time when botany was a science that required self-sacrifice and excitement, courage and willingness to risk his life, when a scientist was an adventurer and a discoverer, a businessman and a romantic, when people loved no less passionately than they do now, but restraint was considered good form. "The Origin of All Things" is a great novel about a great century.