Episode 68: The Thing About Catherine's Love of Hyacinths
Catherine has finally arrived at Northanger Abbey, and she and Henry are engaging in a bit of botanical discourse. This episode we dig into some horticultural history and try to get to the root of Catherine and Henry's chat about hyacinths.
Selected Sources:
Edgeworth, Maria. Early Lessons: In Two Volumes. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. London: R. Hunter, 1803. https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/Stg_AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.
Hanson, Kristan M. “Plant of the Month: Hyacinth.” JSTOR Daily, March 30, 2022. https://daily.jstor.org/plant-of-the-month-hyacinth/.
Lynch, Diedre. “‘Young Ladies Are Delicate Plants’: Jane Austen and Greenhouse Romanticism.” LHH 77, no. 3 (2010): 689–729.
McMaster, Juliet. “‘A Surmise of Such Horror’: Catherine Morland’s Imagination.” Persuasions 32 (2010): 15–27.
Nakagawa, Tomoko. “Roses, Hyacinths, and Pineapples: Historical and Ecocritical Concerns in Northanger Abbey and The Mysteries of Udolpho.” Persuasions 41 (January 1, 2019): 138–49.
Roberts, W. “The Voorhelms of Haarlem.” Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 60, no. 3 (1935): 199–208.
Voorhelm, George. A Treatise on the Hyacinth, Containing the Manner of Cultivating That Flower. Bartholomew Rocque, 1753. https://books.google.com/books?id=04xxMwAACAAJ.
Wenner, Barbara Britton. “‘I Have Just Learnt to Love a Hyacinth’: Jane Austen’s Heroines in Their Novelistic Landscape.” Persuasions 24 (2002).