Catharine Parr Traill (1802 99) was a writer, botanist and settler who emigrated from England to Canada with her husband in 1832. Both she and her sister, Susanna Moodie, became well known for their writing on settler life: Traill is also the author of The Backwoods of Canada and The Canadian Settler's Guide. This 1885 publication is the most comprehensive of her botanical works. Plants are grouped together by family and the book is divided into four sections: native flowers, flowering shrubs, forest trees and native ferns. Written to inspire the Canadian public to share her passion for the...

John Stevens Henslow (1796 1861), professor of botany at Cambridge University and Anglican clergyman, is best remembered for his role as a mentor to Charles Darwin. First published in 1862, this biography by Henslow's colleague and brother-in-law, Leonard Jenyns, pays tribute to a man he describes as one of the most remarkable of his time. Through vivid accounts of times spent with Henslow both in the university and on travels around Britain, he paints a portrait of a modest and conscientious man, whose pursuits were intended solely for the benefit of others. Recounting Henslow's scientific...

An Irish-born gardener and writer, William Robinson (1838 1935) travelled widely to study gardens and gardening in Europe and America. He founded a weekly illustrated periodical, The Garden, in 1871, which he owned until 1919, and published numerous books on different aspects of horticulture. His most famous book, The English Flower Garden (also reprinted in this series), was published in 1883, and fifteen editions were issued in his lifetime. The Wild Garden, published in 1870, attacks contemporary fashions in public parks and private gardens, which involved showy masses of colour in...

The Irish-born gardener and writer William Robinson (1838 1935) travelled widely to study gardens and gardening in Europe and America. In 1871 he founded a weekly illustrated periodical, The Garden, which he owned until 1919, and he published numerous books on different aspects of horticulture. Topics included annuals, hardy perennials, alpines and subtropical plants, as well as accounts of his travels. High Victorian garden fashion involved formal beds of exotic and hothouse flowers. Robinson was influential in introducing less formal garden designs, using plants more suited to the English...

An Irish-born gardener and writer, William Robinson (1838 1935) travelled widely to study gardens and gardening in Europe and America. He founded a weekly illustrated periodical, The Garden, in 1871, which he owned until 1919, and published numerous books on different aspects of horticulture. Topics included annuals, hardy perennials, alpines and sub-tropical plants, as well as accounts of his travels. This book, his most famous work, was first published in 1883, and fifteen editions were issued in his lifetime. It has been described as 'the most widely read and influential gardening book...

John D. Sedding (1838 91) was an English church architect and an influential figure in the Arts and Crafts movement. Having worked in Penzance and Bristol, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1874 and set up a practice in London, eventually becoming a neighbour of William Morris. His designs included new churches such as Holy Trinity in Sloane Street (1888 90), Holy Redeemer in Clerkenwell (1887 95), and All Saints, Falmouth (1887 90), as well as restoration projects and decorative work. In 1888 he moved to Kent, and developed his interests in gardening and...

For twenty years, the herbalist John Gerard (1545 1612) served as superintendent of the gardens of Elizabeth I's minister, Lord Burghley. The 1596 edition of Gerard's Catalogus is probably the first complete catalogue of any one garden, public or private, ever published. Describing his own garden, the list includes frankincense, saffron, an almond tree and even tulips, then exotic and notoriously costly. Probably intended originally only for the interest of Gerard's friends, and containing numerous errors, it progressed in 1599 into a new, improved edition for a much wider readership. In this...

James Shirley Hibberd (1825 90) was a journalist and horticultural writer who worked as a bookseller before devoting his time to researching and lecturing and publishing on gardening. An active member of the Royal Horticultural Society, he edited several gardening magazines including Floral World, and his writing was widely enjoyed and respected. This book, first published in 1856, is Hibberd's carefully researched and practical guide to decorating the home and garden. Hibberd explains the practical aspects of garden design, the pleasures of bee-keeping, and how to construct a pond or...

James Shirley Hibberd (1825 90) was a journalist and writer on gardening, whose popular works had great influence on middle-class taste. Although not a trained horticulturalist, his many books were based on practical experience. He developed a succession of gardens in north London concentrating on particular types of plants, and his books reflected this work, with the Rose Book (1864) and the Fern Garden (1869) being particularly successful. He also wrote on garden design, flower arrangement, garden furniture and architecture, and his Rustic Adornments of 1856, also published in this series,...

Gertrude Jekyll (1843 1932) was one of the most influential garden designers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Skilled as a painter and in many forms of handicrafts, she found her metier in the combination of her artistic skills with considerable botanical knowledge. Having been collecting and breeding plants, including Mediterranean natives, since the 1860s, she began writing for William Robinson's magazine, The Garden, in 1881, and together they are regarded as transforming English horticultural method and design: Jekyll herself received over 400 design commissions in...