The Loudons and the Gardening Press: A Victorian Cultural Industry

Dewis shows how John Loudon's Suburban Garden and Villa Companion presented scientific and aesthetic knowledge not available in other periodicals aimed at women; in this way, he enabled women to become not only passive consumers but also active producers of this discourse in their homes and gardens (179). While previous scholarship has tended to situate Loudon's work as firmly entrenched in mid-century class and gender ideology, Dewis convincingly shows how her editorship exposed contradictions in those class and gender expectations and invited women to take part in literary and scientific discourse (195, 235).