I bought a secondhand copy recently of this biography of the Victorian lady gardening writer who was gardening's Mrs Beeton.  It is terribly gushing and flowery, by another lady writer (there's no other way to describe her!) for Country Life,  but it's still rather readable - and isn't the jacket simply lovely? As for Mrs Loudon's magnificent Bayswater villa with its domed conservatory, glimpsed on the cover - well, it's still there, but no middle-class lady writer, except possibly JK Rowling, could aspire to it today. (Actually, Mrs L was getting strapped for cash by the time she died.) Worth heavens knows how many millions, it is now an absentee Arab sheikh's pied-à-terre - which seems rather sad. And I suppose Mrs L's favourite hyacinths and camellias are long gone. 

Here are some more illustrations by Philip Gough, who did the book jacket.