- Paperback: 291 pages
- Publisher: Broadway Books; Reprint edition (6 Dec 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0307463532
- ISBN-13: 978-0307463531
- Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 1.8 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 872,476 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Discovery of Jeanne Baret
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Product Description
Product Description
The year was 1765. Eminent botanist Philibert Commerson had just been appointed to a grand new expedition: the first French circumnavigation of the world. As the ships’ official naturalist, Commerson would seek out resources—medicines, spices, timber, food—that could give the French an edge in the ever-accelerating race for empire.
Jeanne Baret, Commerson’s young mistress and collaborator, was desperate not to be left behind. She disguised herself as a teenage boy and signed on as his assistant. The journey made the twenty-six-year-old, known to her shipmates as “Jean” rather than “Jeanne,” the first woman to ever sail around the globe. Yet so little is known about this extraordinary woman, whose accomplishments were considered to be subversive, even impossible for someone of her sex and class.
When the ships made landfall and the secret lovers disembarked to explore, Baret carried heavy wooden field presses and bulky optical instruments over beaches and hills, impressing observers on the ships’ decks with her obvious strength and stamina. Less obvious were the strips of linen wound tight around her upper body and the months she had spent perfecting her masculine disguise in the streets and marketplaces of Paris.
Expedition commander Louis-Antoine de Bougainville recorded in his journal that curious Tahitian natives exposed Baret as a woman, eighteen months into the voyage. But the true story, it turns out, is more complicated.
In The Discovery of Jeanne Baret, Glynis Ridley unravels the conflicting accounts recorded by Baret’s crewmates to piece together the real story: how Baret’s identity was in fact widely suspected within just a couple of weeks of embarking, and the painful consequences of those suspicions; the newly discovered notebook, written in Baret’s own hand, that proves her scientific acumen; and the thousands of specimens she collected, most famously the showy vine bougainvillea.
Ridley also richly explores Baret’s awkward, sometimes dangerous interactions with the men on the ship, including Baret’s lover, the obsessive and sometimes prickly naturalist; a fashion-plate prince who, with his elaborate wigs and velvet garments, was often mistaken for a woman himself; the sour ship’s surgeon, who despised Baret and Commerson; even a Tahitian islander who joined the expedition and asked Baret to show him how to behave like a Frenchman.
But the central character of this true story is Jeanne Baret herself, a working-class woman whose scientific contributions were quietly dismissed and written out of history—until now. Anchored in impeccable original research and bursting with unforgettable characters and exotic settings, The Discovery of Jeanne Baret offers this forgotten heroine a chance to bloom at long last.
From the Hardcover edition.
Jeanne Baret, Commerson’s young mistress and collaborator, was desperate not to be left behind. She disguised herself as a teenage boy and signed on as his assistant. The journey made the twenty-six-year-old, known to her shipmates as “Jean” rather than “Jeanne,” the first woman to ever sail around the globe. Yet so little is known about this extraordinary woman, whose accomplishments were considered to be subversive, even impossible for someone of her sex and class.
When the ships made landfall and the secret lovers disembarked to explore, Baret carried heavy wooden field presses and bulky optical instruments over beaches and hills, impressing observers on the ships’ decks with her obvious strength and stamina. Less obvious were the strips of linen wound tight around her upper body and the months she had spent perfecting her masculine disguise in the streets and marketplaces of Paris.
Expedition commander Louis-Antoine de Bougainville recorded in his journal that curious Tahitian natives exposed Baret as a woman, eighteen months into the voyage. But the true story, it turns out, is more complicated.
In The Discovery of Jeanne Baret, Glynis Ridley unravels the conflicting accounts recorded by Baret’s crewmates to piece together the real story: how Baret’s identity was in fact widely suspected within just a couple of weeks of embarking, and the painful consequences of those suspicions; the newly discovered notebook, written in Baret’s own hand, that proves her scientific acumen; and the thousands of specimens she collected, most famously the showy vine bougainvillea.
Ridley also richly explores Baret’s awkward, sometimes dangerous interactions with the men on the ship, including Baret’s lover, the obsessive and sometimes prickly naturalist; a fashion-plate prince who, with his elaborate wigs and velvet garments, was often mistaken for a woman himself; the sour ship’s surgeon, who despised Baret and Commerson; even a Tahitian islander who joined the expedition and asked Baret to show him how to behave like a Frenchman.
But the central character of this true story is Jeanne Baret herself, a working-class woman whose scientific contributions were quietly dismissed and written out of history—until now. Anchored in impeccable original research and bursting with unforgettable characters and exotic settings, The Discovery of Jeanne Baret offers this forgotten heroine a chance to bloom at long last.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is the most remarkable book I have read in many years! Glynis Ridley has put an immense amount of research into telling this amazing story of human endurance and tenacity. Apart from the central narrative, she goes to great lengths to explain the historical context of every incident clearly and concisely. Just to give one little example - I never knew the origin of the tongue-twister about "Peter Piper Picked a peck of Pickled Pepper". Ridley reveals the true identity of "Peter Piper", when the poem was first published, the quantity of a peck measure, and why peppers were pickled at that period!
The summary given above this review outlines the story itself; what it does not do is to pay tribute to the author's complete mastery of her subject. I cannot recommend this book too highly - it is outstanding and I now look forward to reading further work by her.
The summary given above this review outlines the story itself; what it does not do is to pay tribute to the author's complete mastery of her subject. I cannot recommend this book too highly - it is outstanding and I now look forward to reading further work by her.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
17 reviews
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
House of Cards
25 Mar 2011
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I was hoping for a story that was equal parts botany, voyaging, and the intrigue of concealing one's gender in the confines of a relatively small ship. Unfortunately, it is primarily about the latter.
The author imputes so many thoughts and actions to the main character, Baret, as well as captain Bougainville and her master, Commerson, that it almost feels like a novel at times. Other authors might have used the same source material and come with an entirely different character and story line.
At one point she accuses historians of essentially sticking to the facts as presented in the various journals that exist rather than reporting "what so clearly happened." In other words, although there is no evidence to support her hypothesis, we readers are supposed to accept the author's opinion as the obvious truth. If this sounds vague it's that I don't wish to interject a spoiler. All I will say is that after reading the source material which she quotes, I could just have easily accepted the source version of the events as what in the author's mind "clearly did happen."
Once the author takes the leap of faith in her theory she proceeds to base the rest of the story on it as if it were fact, going so far to use the lack of support in any of the journals as proof of a conspiracy to conceal the "truth" of the dastardly event. She even puts thoughts in Bougainville's mind as to decisions he made but shared with no one, not even his journal. The length of the chain of supporting suppositions becomes truly amazing. Essentially, it is a house of cards, pull one out and it all falls down.
The author seems quite content to make up or assume facts in other areas as well. She states that the reason the crews had no luck catching fish was that they "were too far from both the continental island of New Guinea and the volcanic islands of the South Pacific to stand any chance of catching anything." Tuna and mahi-mahi abound in the open ocean. We have caught both of these types of fish in the very waters the author speaks of. It is more likely that the crews did not know how to catch pelagic species. It requires a lure be towed on the surface within a certain range of speeds. It was so easy to catch these fish we only fished when we had room in the freezer.
In the end she does an excellent job of tying up all the loose ends in her epilogue where she details what happened to all the major characters after the conclusion of the expedition.
Had the author either stuck to the facts and labeled her opinions and hypotheses as such, or had she, in the tradition of Irving Stone, chosen the write an historical novel, free to impute thoughts, actions and characteristics to her characters, I could have enjoyed the book. But as such, it only made me angry to see her disparage historians and their code of relating and interpreting historical events, rather than creating them from wisps of smoke.
The author imputes so many thoughts and actions to the main character, Baret, as well as captain Bougainville and her master, Commerson, that it almost feels like a novel at times. Other authors might have used the same source material and come with an entirely different character and story line.
At one point she accuses historians of essentially sticking to the facts as presented in the various journals that exist rather than reporting "what so clearly happened." In other words, although there is no evidence to support her hypothesis, we readers are supposed to accept the author's opinion as the obvious truth. If this sounds vague it's that I don't wish to interject a spoiler. All I will say is that after reading the source material which she quotes, I could just have easily accepted the source version of the events as what in the author's mind "clearly did happen."
Once the author takes the leap of faith in her theory she proceeds to base the rest of the story on it as if it were fact, going so far to use the lack of support in any of the journals as proof of a conspiracy to conceal the "truth" of the dastardly event. She even puts thoughts in Bougainville's mind as to decisions he made but shared with no one, not even his journal. The length of the chain of supporting suppositions becomes truly amazing. Essentially, it is a house of cards, pull one out and it all falls down.
The author seems quite content to make up or assume facts in other areas as well. She states that the reason the crews had no luck catching fish was that they "were too far from both the continental island of New Guinea and the volcanic islands of the South Pacific to stand any chance of catching anything." Tuna and mahi-mahi abound in the open ocean. We have caught both of these types of fish in the very waters the author speaks of. It is more likely that the crews did not know how to catch pelagic species. It requires a lure be towed on the surface within a certain range of speeds. It was so easy to catch these fish we only fished when we had room in the freezer.
In the end she does an excellent job of tying up all the loose ends in her epilogue where she details what happened to all the major characters after the conclusion of the expedition.
Had the author either stuck to the facts and labeled her opinions and hypotheses as such, or had she, in the tradition of Irving Stone, chosen the write an historical novel, free to impute thoughts, actions and characteristics to her characters, I could have enjoyed the book. But as such, it only made me angry to see her disparage historians and their code of relating and interpreting historical events, rather than creating them from wisps of smoke.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A Triumph of Scholarship
2 Feb 2011
Format:Hardcover
Professor Ridley here uncovers the fascinating story of Jeanne Baret, who, disguised as a man, became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. In doing so, she not only reveals the long neglected (and, in some cases, falsified) details of Baret's life, but she also sheds light on a number of little-known aspects of Enlightenment culture. In fluid prose, Ridley weaves together details concerning eighteenth-century French nautical culture, the history of the scientific study of plants, the practices of rural herbwomen, and the European exploration of the south Pacific. To her very great credit, Ridley does not try to sugar-coat Baret's experiences or to wrestle her biography into the sort of one-size-fits-all inspirational-happy-ending model too common in books of this sort; instead, she makes impressive use of overlooked archival materials to paint a vivid picture of the events of Baret's life and the cultural milieu she inhabited. In perhaps her greatest achievement, Ridley recovers the true circumstances of Baret's "discovery" on Tahiti and shows how generations of scholars have conspired to conceal the true details of this shocking episode. Readers will come away from this book with a new understanding of the eighteenth-century roots of modern scientific culture and, more importantly, a long-overdue appreciation of Baret's accomplishments.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
The Enigma of Jeanne Baret
11 Feb 2012
Format:Hardcover
Jeanne Baret was an unusual woman, not just by 18th century standards, but for any time on earth. Disguising herself as a man for a 3 year trip around the world in a ship roughly the size of a big townhouse, packed to the gunwales with male sailors, servants and officers was an act of bravery or magical thinking or extreme stupidity. We don't know what was in her mind because there are no accounts of her adventure written by her. She's been erased from history. Until this book. Part historical account of French efforts to play catch-up to the explorations engaged by other countries, part redemption of Ms. Baret's work as an herb woman, part outrage at the way history is handled when women are involved, part denunciation of those involved in protecting their careers by denying Baret's gender, part botany lesson, this book is at times jaw-dropping, and other times frustrating. Ridley has a tendency to support conjecture about events with ersatz proof taken from fiction set in the 1760s. That is her prerogative as a writer, but it does not serve the history. The life of Jeanne Baret is fascinating, and we can endlessly speculate what possessed this working class woman to undertake such a perilous adventure. I wish we could know.
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