The Temple of Flora

Published in 1799, Dr. Robert John Thorton’s masterpiece The Temple of Flora remains an awe inspiring work of botanical and artistic literature even in this modern day and age. After inheriting great wealth from his family and inspired by the work of Carl Linnaeus, Thorton set out to produce England’s finest piece of botanical literature to date. Hiring some of the most skilled artists available at the time, Thorton began embarking on this endeavor, however, after some time he unfortunately he ran into endless problems in getting the work published. Due to social, political, and financial factors, he was forced to trim The Temple of Flora down to just a fraction of his original vision for the project. His determination to have this work published left Thorton completely broke at the time of his death, however, his legacy continues to live on through the exquisite The Temple of Flora. Filled with lavishly beautiful full color illustrations, botanical information, and even nods to classic poetry, The Temple of Flora is truly without a doubt one of England’s premier pieces of botanical literature.

Thanks to the publishing company Taschen Books, this extremely rare work is now available to the general public as a set of high quality large format prints. Packaged in a presentation case, the 110-page offering features a 44-page booklet including author Werner Dressendörfer’s introduction as well as the texts of all 31 botanical plates and 33 loose-leaf Elephant folio-sized color prints for browsing or framing. For a preview of Taschen’s publication of these plates, follow this link:
The Temple of Flora @ taschen.com.



The Temple of Flora is also available through Amazon.com at the following location:
The Temple of Flora @ amazon.com

Mike Blomberg
Imaging Lab Coordinator
Missouri Botanical Garden