The Language of Flowers by Beverly Seaton - 9780813915562

The Language of FlowersA History\nAuthor(s): Beverly Seaton\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: University of Virginia Press, United States\nImprint: University of Virginia Press\nISBN-13: 9780813915562, 978-0813915562\nSynopsis\nThe author traces the phenomenon of ascribing sentimental meaning to floral imagery from its beginnings in Napoleonic France through its later transformations in England and America. At the heart of the book is a depiction of what the three most important flower books from each of the countries divulge about the period and the respective cultures. Seaton shows that the language of flowers was not a single and universally understood correlation of flowers to meanings that men and women used to communicate in matters of love and romance. The language differs from book to book, country to country. To place the language of flowers in social and literary perspective, the author examines the nineteenth-century uses of flowers in everyday life and in ceremonies and ritua.