The Great Unknown, Peg Kingman
The Great Unknown, Peg Kingman
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The Great Unknown
A Novel

Author: Peg Kingman

Narrator: Henrietta Meire

Unabridged: 10 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/18/2020


Synopsis

What is your name? Where did you come from? And where are you going? In this immersive novel set in 1840s Britain and France, these questions probe at the essence of what it means to be human.

A wet nurse in a lively Scottish household goes by an assumed name, but longs to know the identity of her father. A quarryman furtively extricates a remarkable fossil from an island off the Northumberland coast and promptly smuggles it abroad to Paris. A sensational bestselling book that shatters cherished notions about the universe and everything in it triggers widespread argument and speculation—but its author's name is a well-guarded secret. Another book, roundly ignored, neatly sets forth in an obscure appendix the principle that will become the centerpiece of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. All these threads—some historical, others fictional—converge and illuminate one another in unexpected ways in the climactic revelations of this brilliant story.

About Peg Kingman

Peg Kingman is the author of The Great Unknown, Not Yet Drown'd, and Original Sins: A Novel of Slavery & Freedom. She worked for many years as a technical writer and a tea merchant. She lives in Northern California.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Annette

What does it mean to be human? This premise is explored through different characters connected by a book on human development. Robert Chambers family is spending summer outside Edinburgh as their house in the city is being renovated. They have eight children and one infant, whom they struggle to feed......more

via my blog: [URL not allowed] 'Nothing happens; and nothing happens; and still nothing happens. Everything remains the same… or so it seems. But the truth is that everything is changing imperceptibly all the time.' The Great Unknown set in the 1840’s Britain and France, forces on......more

Goodreads review by Deuce

First off, may I say I feel like a total idiot for not realising the two books critical to this book are real. As are the stories behind their authorship and the effects they had on society. I really enjoyed reading this. I am not an eloquent reviewer. I know I will not convince anyone to read this......more