You Can Help with a Book Title

I am days away from signing a contract for my book.  It has been a long journey.

The book motivated this blog almost two years ago.  Now I enjoy writing and editing these posts.

My need for your help is the subject of this post. I need your wisdom for the title of the book.

The main idea of the book is that in the nineteenth century for the  first time a mass media driven garden became part of the culture.

With the rise of the number of newspapers, magazines, and their dependence on advertising in the second half of the nineteenth century, the American garden industry changed as well.

The new media environment put the the selling of plants and seeds into a new orbit.

Modern seed companies and nurseries, those after 1870, used the new media to sell a garden brand, which in the catalogs was their version of the English garden with its lawn and flowerbeds.

Advertising of any product like medicinal beverages, clothing, furniture, canned goods, and, of course, seeds and plants became unbridled.  People could write and illustrate whatever they wanted about a product. There was a seduction of the consumer, especially women, through the words and images connected with a product.

I want to thank historian Jackson Lears who develops the  idea of ‘seduction’ in his  book on the cultural history of advertising called Fables of Abundance.

The working title of my book is Seduction of the English Garden: The Story of American Gardening according to the Nineteenth Century Seed and Nursery Catalogs.

The ‘Crimson Rambler’ rose  [above] might work for the cover. Notice the landscape illustrated in this Peter Henderson catalog.

The book will come out next year.

Here is where you can help.

What do you think of the title?  Do you like it? Do you have a suggestion for another title?

I look forward to hearing from you.

If you like the title, let me know that as well.

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