Set against the backdrop of a devastating forest fire that Henry David Thoreau accidentally set in 1844, John Pipkin''s novel brilliantly illuminates the mind of the young philosopher at a formative moment in his life and in the life of the young nation.The Thoreau of Woodsburner is a lost soul, resigned to a career designing pencils for his father''s factory while dreaming of better things. On the day of the fire, his path crosses those of three very different people, each of whom also harbors a secret dream. Oddmund Hus, a shy Norwegian farmhand, pines for the wife of his brutal employer. Eliot Calvert, a prosperous bookseller, is also a hilariously inept aspiring playwright. Caleb Dowdy preaches fire and brimstone to his followers through an opium haze. Each of their lives, like Thoreau''s, will be changed forever by the fire.From the Trade Paperback edition.
A transporting historical novel from the acclaimed author of Woodsburner.In late-eighteenth-century Ireland, Caroline Ainsworth learns that her life is not what it seems when her father, Arthur, an astronomer gone blind from staring at the sun, throws himself from his rooftop observatory. His vain search for an unknown planet and jealousy over astronomer William Herschel''s discovery of Uranus had driven him to madness. Grief-stricken, Caroline leaves Ireland for London. But her father has left behind a cryptic atlas that holds the secret to finding a new world at the edge of the sky. As Caroline reluctantly resumes her father''s work, she must confront her own longings, including her love for her father''s former assistant, the tinkering blacksmith Finnegan O''Siodha. Then Ireland is swept into rebellion, and Catherine and Finnegan are plunged into its violence.A novel about the obsessions of the age--scientific inquiry, geographic discovery, political reformation, but above all, astronomy--The Blind Astronomer''s Daughter encapsulates the quest for knowledge and for human connection. It is rich, far-reaching, and unforgettable.