Honored to Win Victorian Society’s Annual Book Award

I am happy to report that the Victorian Society in America has given my new book All about Flowers: James Vick’s Nineteenth-Century Seed Company its annual book award.

According to their website, the Victorian Society presents its award to up to three books that best advance an understanding or appreciation of the decorative arts or architecture of the nineteenth-century.

I am delighted that they chose my book as one of the three.

The congratulatory letter from the Society said, “The book award committee was most impressed by the quality of the scholarshp.”

The research for the book took several years. Most of that research I did in Rochester, New York, both Vick’s home and the site of his seed business as well.

Many people however helped me along the way.

I was able to connect with Mr. Vick’s great-great- grandsons, one in Connecticut and the other in California. They were generous to share materials from the old Vick company, especially colorful chromolithographs that appeared in either Vick’s seed company catalog or his monthly magazine. Vick hired artists to produce these beautiful images of some of his treasured flowers like roses and dahlias.

And, of course, I am grateful to Gillian Berchowitz, the editor at Ohio University Press, the publisher. She was very patient during the whole process.

The Press did an excellent job in the book’s beautiful layout, including the eye-catching cover.