Darwin may have also thought of The Love of the Plants “as a kind of love song” to Elizabeth Pole, a woman with whom he was in love and would eventually marry. Concerned about his scientific reputation and curious to see if there would be an audience for his more demanding poem The Economy of Vegetation, he published The Loves of the Plants anonymously in 1789 (see 1789 in poetry). He was stunned at its success and therefore published both Loves of the Plants and Economy of Vegetation together as The Botanic Garden in 1791. Joseph Johnson, his publisher, eventually bought the copyright for The Botanic Garden from him for the staggering sum of £800. When Johnson published the combined and illustrated The Botanic Garden in 1791, he charged twenty-one shillings for it, a hefty price at the time. Seward wrote that "the immense price which the bookseller gave for this work, was doubtless owing to considerations which inspired his trust in its popularity. Botany was, at that time, and still continues a very fashionable study." However, the high price would also have discouraged government prosecution for a book that contained radical political views. Any subversive ideas that the poem contained were therefore initially limited to an audience of educated people who could afford to purchase the book. Because amateur botany was popular in Britain during the second half of the eighteenth century, The Botanic Garden, despite its initial high cost, was a bestseller. In 1799 it was in a fourth edition as The Botanic Garden; A Poem in Two Parts at a smaller and more affordable octavo size, and this was another best-seller. There were three early Irish editions, and a second American edition had appeared by 1807. Despite the huge demand in 1799 and into the early 1800s, and cheaper pirated American and Irish imports, there was room in the market for another edition in Britain 1824 with a reprinting in 1825. The Loves of the Plants Structure and poetic style Suggesting the passing of a single day, The Loves of the Plants is divided into four cantos, all written in heroic couplets. A preface to the poem outlines the basics of the Linnaean classification system. Guiding the reader through the garden is a “Botanic Muse” who is described as Linnaeus's inspiration. Interspersed between the cantos are dialogues on poetic theory between the poet and his bookseller. The