An exploration of the contributions of women to the field of botany before and after the dawn of the Victorian Age. It shows how ideas about botany as a leisure activity for self-improvement and a "feminine" pursuit gave women opportunities to publish their findings in periodicals.

The publication of this book marks the tercentenary of the revolution which swept King James VII and II off the thrones of Scotland and England and saw his sister Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange appointed co-monarchs in his stead.

This lively selection from the "day-book" of an author's reading and writing life focuses on a wide range of writers who have inspired him-- from Thomas Traherne to Virginia Woolf, Laurie Lee to Russell Hoban. Other key subjects include writers and artists of the First World War and the representation of the rural world.

Through an examination of Tennyson's 'domestic poetry' - his portrayals of England and the English - in their changing nineteenth-century context, this book demonstrates that many of his representations were 'fabrications', more idealized than real, which played a vital part in the country's developing identity and sense of its place in the world.