Sarah Bilston is a professor and the chair of the English department at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Her most recent book is The Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession.

Plant hunting may conjure up images of bold Victorian explorers, intrepid grail seekers, and storied men of science—Joseph ...

“Swallow your pride and make the first move,” one reader says. This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that ...

The framers of the Constitution were trying to prevent exactly this sort of corruption.