The Plant Hunter: 'A great adventure' William Boyd

Great book but very hard to read the parts containing scenes where animals were hurt so gave it 4 stars rather than 5.

An adventurous page turner that taught me a lot about plant hunters and plant collecting in the 19th century. It’s an amusing and interesting debut and definitely one that whisked me off to a different century. The main characters stayed with me afterwards, I liked the bits of humour but I have to admit I didn't like how the dog was treated - animal lovers beware. A good story though and different.

The China Station…The Plant Hunter is a first-class historical novel. The setting is mainly in London and subsequently in China in the 1860s. Spike Sanguinetti the Gibraltarian lawyer, Thomas Mogford's usual lead character has been sent on sabbatical leave, and in the mean time Mogford's new protagonist, a young handsome horticulturalist, embarks on a quest for the rare flowering tree. The King's Road, Chelsea, is home to famous plant nurseries whose owners compete to acquire exotic new plants from foreign lands that command fabulous prices.Woven into the impressively researched account of the expedition to the interior of China is an adventure story, a romance, an involvement with the notorious opium trade, the perils of navigating the Yangtze and its tributaries, and the difficulties of travelling under imperial Chinese administrative rule. It is a fascinating, haunting feat of historical reconstruction that lives on in the imagination long after the last page has been turned.The China Station...

This is an Intelligent historical adventure of some quality. Focussing on the risks and reward for 19th British botanists travelling across the globe in search of new plants for the insatiable buyers market back home, it is meticulously researched without being dry, with a pleasingly simple narrative structure with enough twists along the way to share the reader’s interest.The parallel story of the opium trade and the devastating impact of British policy in China, whilst not being the immediate focus, is perhaps the more arresting and lifts this novel beyond simply being a swashbuckling page turning yarn (which it most certainly is of some distinction), and into being something rather more subtle and thought provoking.

Enjoyable jaunt with a botanical slant. Story of plant collectors bringing their finds back to London in the years before Queen Victoria came to the throne. Well told and the story moved along briskly.

I loved this read. A really well researched, compelling and exciting historical novel. The story, like the journey it captures down the Yangtze River, is wonderfully meandering - full of the sights and sounds of 19th Century China - the pace changing quickly and unpredictably like the treacherous rapids the protagonists face. We are swept along by the likeable young adventurer, Harry Compton, and his unexpected companion, widower, Clarissa. For anyone interested in the origin of some our most favoured garden plants, or in Chelsea’s botanical past, it’s a colourful, unusual and engaging window on that past. Definitely worth a read!

Quite an enjoyable read, not too much brain work necessary

I enjoyed every page of this fascinating glimpse into the world of the Victorian plant hunters. I read it virtually in one sitting and was left bereft when it was finished. I wanted more!! The incredible passion imbedded in the main characters that drove them to endure every hardship and challenge just to find those amazing plants that we now take for granted is inspiring!!