Profile of Joan Morgan

Joan Morgan's knowledge of apple varieties, their tastes and histories has brought national and international recognition for her work; she is fondly known as the 'Queen of Apples'. Joan has also been studying pears and The Book of Pears is now published. She has set up a companion website for the book: http://www.thebookofpears.fruitforum.net

Joan is part of that long line of British fruit enthusiasts and pomologists who have studied and recorded fruit varieties and above all celebrated their flavours. She is inspired by the Victorian authority Dr. Robert Hogg and Edward Bunyard, who wrote in the 1920s and 1930s, and although considering herself an apprentice by comparison she is of that tradition. She promotes fruit through her writings and also through broadcasts and talks.

Her studies on apples culminated in The Book of Apples (1993) and its updated and revised edition The New Book of Apples (2002), written in collaboration with her great friend Alison Richards and illustrated by Elisabeth Dowle, one of our foremost botanical artists. Her studies on pears have resulted in the companion volume The Book of Pears (2015), with paintings by Elisabeth. It is published by Ebury Press, in association with the Royal Horticultural Society, in the UK and by Chelsea Green in the USA.

The Book of Pears covers the story of the pear: its role as a treasured fruit for fresh eating and the use of other varieties for cooking and for making into perry, as well as its position in the international fruit trade. The book includes a Directory to over 500 varieties of pear. Elisabeth has painted 40 water-colour plates of pears to illustrate the book.

The companion website - http://www.thebookofpears.fruitforum.net - complements The Book of Pears and Elisabeth's paintings by providing photographs of almost every one of the varieties described in its Directory, impossible to include in the book itself. In combination with the book, this gallery of photographs can be used both to put an image to a name and to help put a name to an unknown pear; the book has tasting notes, history and a full fruit description for every variety.

Joan is also the author of A Paradise out of a Common Field; the Pleasures and Plenty of the Victorian Garden (1990) written with Alison Richards. She contributed several chapters to The Downright Epicure; Essays on Edward Ashdown Bunyard (1878-1939) edited by Edward Wilson (2007). During the autumn months she keeps her eye in and palate honed by identifying hundreds of apple and pears, which she does on a voluntary basis for Brogdale in Kent, home of Britain's unique and world famous National Fruit Collection. The Directory in The Book of Apples/The New Book of Apples and the Directory in The Book of Pears are based upon the Apple Collection and the Pear Collection at Brogdale. 

In recognition of her work Joan has been awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Veitch Memorial Medal, she is one of only 50 recipients of the Institute of Horticulture Award for ‘Outstanding Services to Horticulture’ and an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers.

Joan has recently received the 'Derek Cooper Outstanding Achievement Award 2016' at the BBC Food and Farming Awards ceremony held on 28 April 2016. This was broadcast on BBC Radio 4: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b078wmtg  

She is Vice- Chairman of the RHS Fruit, Vegetable and Herb Committee and Chairman of the RHS Fruit Trials Forum.

Joan is in touch with fellow fruit specialists throughout Britain and many countries abroad. In pursuit of her studies she has also established links with some of the most historic fruit areas of the world, including Syria (during the period 2000-2005) and Iran.

On line, in 2007 she set up Fruit Forum, a website and blog for discussing anything and everything to do with fruit and now she has set up http://www.thebookofpears.fruitforum.net as a companion website to The Book of Pears.