The Plant Hunter
TLS – February 18, 2022
The Plant Hunter is Stevensonian, and it does feature a map quite early on – though not a very detailed one. The map that the horticultural enthusiast Harry Compton is gifted shows ‘Inland China’ and the ‘Yang Tze river’, with a small black cross where the rare icicle tree can be found. The narrative begins and ends in England, but most of the action takes place in China in 1867-8, in the aftermath of the Opium Wars (1839-42 and 1856-60), a time when English ‘devils’ were even less welcome than they had ever been. The timeframe has been carefully selected, just preceding the ferocious anti-Chinese stereotyping that followed Charles Dickens’s depiction of East End opium cellars in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1869). Plant hunters bringing back exotic specimens could make enormous profits. Commercial nurseries were expanding and competing, and inventions like the Wardian case (a miniature greenhouse) and the vasculum (a botanical box to keep plants in while travelling) improved the chances of success. The Plant Hunter combines elements of the adventure yarn with real and invented horticultural lore. Harry becomes a plant hunter by accident. Too good-looking to be hidden away on the nursery where he might improve his knowledge, he is dressed up in a frock coat and required to waste his days in sales. Then everything changes.
Simply and cleanly written – chapters behind ‘Three days later, ‘The next day’, ‘The next morning’ – the action moves at pace. Harry is stoical, imperilled, resolute. He learns about the unequal treaties Britain forced on China and the villainous part played by Imperial Britain in helping to create opium dependence: for China, the nineteenth century was the ‘Century of Humiliation’. He sees at first-hand the destruction caused by the habit and is guided in his understanding by Li-Liang, an older savant who becomes his guide. Harry is also disabused of any Victorian notions of helpless womanhood by Clarissa, the window of en English merchant, whose business acumen and diplomacy equal her artistic skills. The pair venture deep onto Hunan province, bandit country and botanical paradise. The icicle tree with its pinnate leaves and clean white foliage like frosted daggers is a fictional plant resembling Pistacia chinensis, famed for its brilliant colouring. Both exquisite and hard, it is a bit like Harry himself. He braves all dangers, meeting every challenge with decency and the requisite violence. He is every bit like the plant hunters of old, who travelled in ‘The Flowery Kingdom’ with vasculum, camera and gun. There are thrills, but you know he will come through. Harry is a healthy innocent, happiest when tending his plants. Norma Clarke
THE SUNDAY TIMES — February 2022
Structured conventionally, TL Mogford’s The Plant Hunter is an engaging adventure. in 1867 Harry Compton, who works in a Chelsea plant nursery, briefly befriends an opium-addicted Irishman called Lorcan Darke. On Darke’s death he inherits a tattered map of China that supposedly pinpoints the location of an extremely rare tree. Seizing the opportunity, Harry heads for the East intent on tracking down the botanical wonder. Dangers, deceptions and a romance with an enigmatic widow await him in Mogford’s inventive tale. Nick Rennison.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH — 16 February 2022
The Plant Hunter by TL Mogford review: Indiana Jones meets Treasure Island in a cracking adventure…
A Victorian adventurer is chased by pirates, thieves and botanists in this swashbuckling romp of a novel
The real-life plant hunters of the Victorian era, those intrepid explorers who scoured far-flung places for exotic blooms, are the inspiration for TL (Thomas) Mogford’s cracking yarn. This is Mogford’s debut historical novel following his series of Gibraltar-set crime thrillers, and his hero ventures much further afield here, journeying from London to Shanghai and up the Yangtze River.
That youthful explorer is Harry Compton, a successful salesman at a grand emporium on Chelsea’s King’s Road. But he knows that the real money – and fame – comes from sourcing rare specimens, and, following a surprise bequest, he finds himself on the trail of the legendary icicle tree.
In many ways, Mogford’s colourful and propulsive romp is a pleasing adventure story throwback: Indiana Jones meets H Rider Haggard or Robert Louis Stevenson, plus the odd cutting from Tulip Fever. Compton follows an actual “x marks the spot” treasure map and is pursued by all manner of rogues, including botanical rivals, thieves and pirates.
However, there’s also a contemporary moral lens applied to this imperial tale. As Compton learns about his country’s part in the Opium Wars and witnesses the devastating effect of the drug, he begins to experience colonial guilt and question his own actions in removing China’s native plants for profit.
Thankfully his travel companions are more knowledgeable, and interestingly complex, including a young widow testing her newfound independence.
This is a riveting page-turner, rich with fascinating period detail. Mogford conjures the 19th-century tools of the trade, like the miraculous vasculum – essentially a transportable greenhouse – as well as a time when the world was full of discoveries for those who dared seek them. Marianka Swain
The Plant Hunter is published by Welbeck at £12.99.