Jane Loudon

While still an adolescent JL published tales and verse; next, in 1827, came a highly unusual science-fiction horror novel. After marrying a horticulturalist she participated in his writing career with work on his gardening magazine and his accounts of travelling in search of gardens to explore and assess. She also pursued her own related line with improving stories about a child naturalist, and with a flow of works, 1839-55, designed to encourage and inform women gardeners. Several of her titles are sufficiently like each other to be confusing, including her best-known, Gardening for Ladies, and a series of books about different kinds of plants, which are distinguished only by subtitle.