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Synopsis
He sailed with Captain Cook. He sat with Benjamin Franklin. He taught Alexander von Humboldt how to see. None of it taught him how to live.
Mainz, in the winter of 1792. The French hold the city, the Prussian army is behind the hills, and Georg Forster—thirty-eight, librarian, Germany’s most famous traveler—sits behind curtained windows reading a book he wrote at twenty-two: three years with Cook, the ice at the bottom of the world, Tahiti, the stone giants of Easter Island, a king made a slave on a sandhill at the end of Africa for the sake of pepper. At seventeen he measured everything and wrote it all down. Now he reads what the boy refused to see—that describing the world is also a way of keeping out of it.
Outside, the same question wears a different face. A republic is being declared, the first on German soil. Fifteen years earlier, at Passy, an old man named Franklin had told him that America was fighting thirty years too soon; Forster believes in this republic more than he trusts it. To sign is to be called a traitor at every bridge over the Rhine. Not to sign is to have watched, once more, from the rail. His wife has gone to Strasbourg with the children; his friend has gone after her. Paris is calling.
He signs.
What follows is the story of a man who was right too early—about empire, about slavery, about what a people may ask of those who rule them—and who paid in the one currency he had never learned to spend: himself. His pupil, a twenty-year-old named Humboldt, would carry that way of seeing to the Americas and become the most celebrated scientist of the age. The teacher did not live to see it.
A novel about a man who measured half the earth and never learned how to sit still and be loved.
For readers of The Invention of Nature, Blue Latitudes, and Wolf Hall: a literary historical novel told in Forster’s own voice, close to the surviving record—and where the record falls silent, as it might have been. Wherever the narrator quotes his own A Voyage Round the World (London, 1777), this edition gives Forster’s English exactly as he printed it, in his spelling and his punctuation. With 52 period illustrations, an afterword on what is documented and what is invented, and a note on the two languages of the book.
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The Man Who Described the World: A Novel Based on the Life of Georg Forster
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The Man Who Described the World : A Novel Based on the Life of Georg Forster
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Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - He sailed with Captain Cook. He sat with Benjamin Franklin. He taught Alexander von Humboldt how to see. None of it taught him how to live. Mainz, in the winter of 1792. The French hold the city, the Prussian army is behind the hills, and Georg Forster-thirty-eight, librarian, the most famous traveler in the German lands-sits behind curtained windows reading a book he wrote at twenty-two: three years with Cook, the ice at the bottom of the world, Tahiti, the stone giants of Easter Island. At seventeen he measured everything and wrote it all down. Now he reads what the boy refused to see-that describing the world is also a way of keeping out of it. Outside, the same question wears a different face. The French Revolution has crossed the Rhine, and a republic is being declared-the first on German soil. Fifteen years earlier, at Passy, an old man named Franklin had told him that America was fighting thirty years too soon; Forster believes in this republic more than he trusts it. To sign is to be called a traitor at every bridge over the Rhine. Not to sign is to have watched, once more, from the rail. His wife has taken the children to Strasbourg. His closest friend has gone with her. Paris is calling. He signs. What follows is the story of a man who was right too early-about empire, about slavery, about what a people may ask of those who rule them-and who paid in the one currency he had never learned to spend: himself. Within a year he is dead in Paris, thirty-nine years old, a traitor in his own country and a footnote in ours. His pupil, a twenty-year-old named Humboldt, would carry his way of seeing to the Americas and become the most celebrated scientist of the age. The teacher did not live to see it. A novel about a man who measured half the earth and never learned how to sit still and be loved. For readers of Measuring the World, The Signature of All Things, and The Invention of Nature: a literary novel of the Enlightenment, told in Forster's own voice and close to the surviving record-and where the record falls silent, as it might have been. Wherever the narrator quotes his own A Voyage Round the World (London, 1777), this edition gives Forster's English exactly as he printed it. With 51 period illustrations, a map of the voyage, an afterword on what is documented and what is invented, and a note by the author on translating his own book. Seller Inventory # 9798173183774