Far Ocean - by Emily Mitchell (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2025 Big Moose Prize, Far Ocean tells the story of 18th-century botanist and explorer Jeanne Baret, the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Born into poverty in rural France, Jeanne struggles to get by, helping her mother in her work as a traditional herbalist and healer. Following a chance meeting with botanist Phillibert de Commerson, Jeanne becomes first Commerson's teacher, then his mistress. She goes to live with him Paris, where he attempts to make his way in the exciting but insecure new world of Enlightenment science.

When Commerson is offered the position of Chief Naturalist on an upcoming voyage of discovery bound for the Pacific, Jeanne presents herself as a boy and convinces Commerson to let her accompany him as his assistant, setting in motion a journey to the most distant places on earth. It's a voyage filled with previously unimaginable experiences, but when things begin to go badly for the expedition, Jeanne finds herself in danger. She must determine where her loyalties ultimately lie to protect herself and those she loves--and to preserve the hope of one day finding her way home.

Review Quotes

Far Ocean gives readers an intimate view of the age of exploration, through an extraordinary character's eyes. The true-life figure Jeanne Baret and her partner Philibert Commerson are rendered with tenderness, even with gentleness, in a world and a time that is anything but gentle.

-- "Stephanie Soileau, author of Should the Waters Take Us"

Far Ocean is a masterfully compelling account of the true story of an extraordinary woman who transcended class and gender boundaries to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. With her seamless immersion in an 18th century French expedition to the South Seas, Emily Mitchell indelibly evokes the fascination of the early practice of natural science, the wonders confronting European travelers in that new world, the limitations of imposed categories when it comes to human beings, and the baleful reach of empire. --Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron

With Far Ocean, Emily Mitchell achieves what so many writers spend their lives trying to achieve: the complete and convincing possession of another voice, from another time and place. The fact that our 18th century protagonist has found herself in a shipboard culture entirely foreign to her, and that this dissonance is rendered with perfect, compelling clarity, makes Mitchell's feat all the more remarkable. A fascinating, brisk, revelatory novel. --Nathaniel Ian Miller, author of The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven and Red Dog Farm

Between the fascinating adventures of her real-life female mariner, Jeanne Baret, and the elegance of her prose, Emily Mitchell has delivered a truly transporting novel. Far Ocean combines a tale of love, survival, and botanical exploration with an alluringly honest and perceptive narrator, who is, in the end, the narrative's finest discovery--this is a great read and I highly recommend it. --Maria Hummel, author of Goldenseal

I love the way Mitchell writes history, as though it is, in fact, her familiar home. Far Ocean gives readers an intimate view of the age of exploration, through an extraordinary character's eyes. The true-life figure Jeanne Baret and her partner Philibert Commerson are rendered with tenderness, even with gentleness, in a world and a time that is anything but gentle. Moreover, the novel is expertly paced--who knew nutmeg could be the seed of a page-turner of a plot? --Stephanie Soileau, author of Last One Out Shut Off the Lights

About the Author

Emily Mitchell is the author of three previous works of fiction, most recently The Church of Divine Electricity, winner of the 2023 Elixir Press Fiction Award. Her short stories have appeared in Harpers', Ploughshares, The Sun, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the New Statesman and Guernica. She served as fiction editor of New England Review from 2018 to 2026. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Maryland and lives near Washington DC.