The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the… (2010)

Any non-fiction book that tells the story of an unknown (to me) and unusual historical character and fascinating history of something we all take for granted - - - gets a 5 star rating !
Not only for Ms. Baret, but the story of botany, ship voyages.
These are my cryptic notes - made to help my memory of some facts:

Herbal woman-rural France-met Commerson, became his ‘live-in’ & aid/co-worker.
Philibert Commerson has passion for Botany - Naturalist
works with Swedish Linneaus who created nomenclature for species, etc
Louis Antoine de Bougainville - French circumnavigation in 1766–1769

Baret disguised as man aboard ship (illegal for women) - was his ‘beast of burden’ Much thought that her gender was “known” ? but . . . claims to be ‘eunuch’
They end up in the captain’s quarters (ease of storing plants - Capt. closer to sailors) so easier to conceal
Rio, Straits of Magellan, Tahiti - at some point a gang-rape becomes pregnant - has child while she and Commerson stay in Mauritius
supposedly to help another French settlement Botanist
He dies, she marries army member
Gets passage back to France - claims inheritance from Commerson
and later gets a pension (equal to what Commerson would have gotten)
lives out life in small town

( )

A profoundly annoying book. Great story - the first woman on record to sail around the world, Jeanne Baret disguised herself as a man and did not just accompany her lover Commerson on Bouganville's voyage of discovery, she worked as hard or harder than most of the expedition as a botanist's assistant. It appears however that the records are scanty and Ridley fills the gaps with great screeds of guesswork, including what the characters were thinking and feeling, much of which seems anachronistic to me. I feel that this would've been better as a novel with an epilogue explaining what is known about our heroine. (Reminded me rather of "The Stolen Woman" which suffers from the same speculative structure). Read it if you are interested in the story but read it with a grain of salt... ( )

While Jeanne Baret is a fascinating subject and admirable heroine for any woman, the execution of The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe suffers as Glynis Ridley interjects too much supposition for a woman who left virtually no paper trail. No one could possibly know her thoughts or her feelings, and yet that is precisely how Ms. Ridley fills the pages. There is a bit too much reading between the lines on firsthand accounts of the journey as it is, and the insertion of emotions and thought processes for a woman who will always remain a shadowy figure in history compounds the issue. Unfortunately, it is excellent historical research undone by the author's personal feelings interspersed throughout the pages.

"You don�Äôt have to be a history buff or a science junkie to enjoy this true tale. Ridley weaves the various threads with excellent skill, and sets the historical stage with well-written prose that reads like historical fiction.

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret is incredible well-researched, although Ridley takes a lot of liberties where there are gaps in historical knowledge. Ridley sets forth many explanations and hypotheses for the historical outcome, while commenting on what more likely occurred.

There are a couple things that I felt lukewarm about: Occasionally the source references felt a little heavy-handed, but once I was familiar with Ridley’s style, the story read smoother; the other thing that bothered me, is that there is a lack of primary sources for Baret’s own thoughts and feelings, yet Ridley often inferred that they were documented.

Read my full review on my blog: http://www.monniblog.com/2012/07/the-discovery-of-jeanne-baret-by-glynis-ridley/" ( )

In 1765, the French king Louis XV ordered an expedition of sailors and civilians to circumnavigate the globe. In the process, the men would claim new lands for France (carving out a colonial empire to rival that of England and Spain) and seek new sources for the spices Europe so desperately craved. To aid in the voyage, a botanist named Philibert Commerson was enlisted to seek out new plants that could be useful to the empire. With him was his youthful assistant, Jean Baret. Jean Baret was no ordinary crew member; she was a disguised woman in her twenties who was both Commerson’s lover and an herb woman whose knowledge greatly helped the botanist throughout the voyage. The tale of how this peasant from rural France left her hometown and became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe is full of courage, intrigue and adventure.

Before picking up this book, I’d never seen the name(s) Jean/Jeanne Baret before, or heard of this enterprising young woman. No surprises there – according to the Acknowledgements at the back of the book, only one other biography of Baret has been written in English, and that was in 2002. That’s not so very long ago, but the book was published in New Zealand, so there are very few copies of it available in the United States. So I’m absolutely delighted that Ridley’s book introduced me to this obscure pioneer.

Jeanne left no written record of her difficult life, so Ridley had to guess at many of the details of her childhood and years aboard the Etoile. Some of her theories are perfectly plausible; she suggests that one of the reasons Jeanne made such a valuable assistant to Commerson was that she was an herb woman, and since she was familiar with plants and their uses back in France she knew what to look for when the landed on foreign soils. The evidence the author provides to back up this suggestion is sparse, but there’s enough there that this seems likely. Later in the book, Ridley proposes that Jeanne was raped when several crew members decided to confirm whether or not the rumor that she was of the gentler sex was true; after suggesting this, she continues through the rest of the book to refer to it as if it were indisputable fact. Unfortunately, the only evidence that supports this idea is some ambiguous phrasing in the diary of the ship’s doctor that could be interpreted in a number of ways.

But even if some of the details about Baret’s life remain indeterminate, I loved reading about her work as a field assistant to Commerson, and the discoveries they made together. I’m a sucker for accounts of early exploration and the rudimentary science of the Enlightenment, and the fact that a woman like Baret could be part of it is pretty amazing, given her background and position as a woman in 18th century France. What impressed me all the more is how brave Baret was. I’m not just talking about her great cross-dressing scheme, although that certainly took guts that I’ll never have. Can you imagine being the only woman on a tiny ship full of men with virtually no privacy? But that’s not what I’m thinking about. After her identity has been revealed, Baret and Commerson leave the voyage at Mauritius, and spend the next several years continuing their botanical research there. Tragically, Commerson dies there, leaving Baret penniless and frightened. But Jeanne Baret doesn’t give up – against all odds, she figures out a way to get home to France and even claim an annual pension for her contributions to the voyage of 1765. Her life is a fascinating story well worth reading. ( )