Book Shopping, Day Eleven
Because I’ve been working out an original system of floromancy for The Silver Casket’s main character Rinette, I’ve been collecting books on the folklore, mythology and literature of flowers. This one is so gorgeous! I could stare at the cover for hours (it’s a detail from a painting called In the Bey’s Garden by John Frederick Lewis) before even opening the book up to savor the pleasures within.
And such pleasures! A Contemplation upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature by Bobby J. Ward traces the flowering history of the natural world, from the everyday to the mystical, as expressed in literature, myth and folklore. Quotations from poems, myths, novels, and plays from ancient Greece to the nineteenth century are used illustrate the literary history of eighty garden plants. Ward also incorporates each plant’s mythological and religious contexts, symbolism in the arts, and traditional medicinal uses, and unusual uses of flowers as food.
Gardeners, history-lovers, literature-lovers, will all open this beautiful book with delight.
A Contemplation upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature by Bobby J. Ward is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books-a-Million, Timber Press, and of course your favorite independent bookstore.
The Second Duchess
Read the First Chapter
The Second Duchess is available on iBookstore!
