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The Loudons and the Gardening Press: A Victorian Cultural Industry. By sarah dewis. Burlington: Ashgate, 2014. 294 pp., £65.00, hardback, isBn 978-1-4094-6922-2.
John claudius loudon (1783-1843), a radical scot, approached the dissemination of horticultural knowledge with almost missionary zeal. There was no aspect of plants, garden styles, gardeners, and landscapers on which he did not hold some strongly expressed opinion. This true polymath was substantially aided from 1830 by his wife, Jane Webb (1807-1858), an established author in her own right. John loudon's prodigious published output was unequalled, but its cost to his health was grievous. he suffered financially from some poor business decisions; his eight volume Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1838), a survey of all the trees grown in the British isles, left him £10,000...