(Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010.)
"Mrs. [Jane Webb] Loudon was even more successful than her husband thanks to a single work, Practical Instructions in Gardening for Ladies, published in 1841, which proved to be magnificently timely. It was the first book of any type ever to encourage women of elevated classes to get their hands dirty and even to take on a faint glow of perspiration. This was novel almost to the point of eroticism." (269)
