Instructions in Gardening for Ladies

Jane Loudon (1807–58), the Mrs Beeton of the Victorian gardening world, wrote several popular books on horticulture and botany, specifically for women. She is also remembered as the author of The Mummy! – an early work of science fiction – and as editor of The Ladies’ Companion. Her knowledge of plants and gardening was gained from her husband, the landscape designer John Claudius Loudon, whom she married in 1830, and from attending the lectures of the botanist John Lindley. Her notes from these were published as articles in John Loudon’s Gardener’s Magazine. This book, first published in 1840, was an immediate success, selling 1,350 copies on the day of publication and more than 200,000 in total. Written in the approachable style typical of her works, it covers all the elements of horticulture, and helped to encourage many Victorian women to take up gardening as a hobby.