Sarah Bilston, professor of English and chair of the English Department, discusses her new book, The Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession (Harvard University Press, 2025).
Why did orchid frenzy happen when it did?
Until the early part of the 19th century, orchids couldn’t be commercially grown and imported. No one understood how they grew. In fact, people thought that they were parasitic because their roots wound around other plants. When one or two fragile plants were brought back from expeditions, few imagined orchids could be a worthwhile commercial venture.
In the later part of the 19th century, there were some advances that enabled orchids to be successfully cultivated in Europe. There were faster steamships, better iron and glass production leading to cheaper greenhouses (many exotic orchids need warmth to grow), and a more literate population that could read instructions on plant care being disseminated in books and magazines.
Also, businessmen were increasingly conscious of the power of media to influence buying habits. Victorians were bombarded by print and text; everywhere they looked, there were advertisements enticing them to buy things.
Why did orchids gain in popularity? What was it about this plant that made it appealing?
First, orchids were rare, and because of this, they were highly valued and expensive. They became a collectible originally associated with the high class. By the middle of the 19th century, the middle class wanted to signal that they had the same values as the old elite. They wanted to telegraph that they were thoughtful and rarified, and so the frenzy began.
Orchids went from being nonexistent to being rare to being readily available to “the million”—what the British called the average middle class.
How did you first become interested in studying “orchid mania?”
In my last book, I wrote about the literature of the Victorian suburbs—authors like Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Bradley were writing about life in the suburbs. Then I found books dedicated to suburban gardens, and many of these mentioned orchids. I kept finding references to the “lost orchid” that took 75 years to recover. There were so many different stories told about how it was found, and they didn’t sound quite real. I became curious. I wondered if I could figure out what actually happened.
Was writing this book different from writing your other academic books?
Yes, because I wanted this book to engage a broader audience. It brought the two writerly sides of me together: my writing as a novelist and my writing as an academic. I experimented a lot with how to structure the book. I wanted the book to have some of the features of fiction like unanswered questions and withheld information. This leaves space for the reader’s interest and gives them the pleasure of waiting for information.
What did you discover?
I discovered that there had been a grand “cover-up.”
Businessmen realized that there was a desire for orchids and that they could take advantage of this desire. In the 19th century, many major multinational companies were competing to be top dog in the orchid industry. The goal was to get brand recognition by getting the best orchids and ruining your competitors’ efforts.
When I began looking at original documents—letters, journals, and the like—what I found were extraordinary stories of deceit, destruction, and violence.
What was the myth about the discovery of the lost orchid?
The standard story—told in many different ways with many different heroes—was that plant hunters were brave men who had keen minds and physical courage. Then they came across stupid and evil local people, and through their intellect and physical brawn, they were able to work around these deceptive locals and discover the plant.
If you set these published accounts against original letters and documents, you can see the mythmaking happening because it was very far from the truth.
What was the truth of the discovery?
You’ll need to read the book to find out!
