Celia Haddon has gathered together some poems and prose on the "queen of fragrance", by writers throughout the centuries. Walter de la Mare, John Gerard, George Eliot, Tennyson, Coleridge, W.B. Yeats, Christina Rossetti, William Blake and others capture the many aspects of the rose. The book is illustrated with paintings and Victorian cards and its endpapers are scented with the fragrance of Crabtree & Evelyn's Evelyn Rose perfume.