Books of Orchids in the 19th Century. Between Marvel, Science and Commerce

Abstract

During the 19th century there was a publishing boom in books related to orchids, known as orchid literature. This responded to an obsession with tropical orchids known as orchidomania, which between 1830 and 1910 had its greatest boom in the United Kingdom. Most books fell into three categories: those that treated orchids as botanical wonders, those that treated them as scientific objects, and those that treated them as commodities. This article analyzes the orchid literature published in the second half of the 19th century. These books, published from travel literature, science, horticulture and commerce, serve as primary sources to understand the development of orchidomania, the different reasons that led Europeans to search for and extract tropical orchids and trace the origins of the fascination with tropical orchids in Europe.