Frontispiece

From Thomas Miller, 'The Poetical Language of Flowers; or the Pilgrimage of Love' (London: David Bogue, 1847).

The language of flowers was a 19th-century code used to make bouquets which passed messages between lovers and suitors. Each flower was given its own meaning and they could be combined to create special messages. The concept was made popular by books which explained these meanings. Miller's 'The Poetical Language of Flowers, or the Pilgrimage of Love' is one example. The book stayed in print through to the last decades of the nineteenth century and was published in America as 'The Romance of Nature; or, the Poetical Language of Flower'.