In July 1886 he wrote to his sister Trudy: During the autumn I intend to reprint my verses and prose under the name of "Orchids".

The poems (for example Erinnering (memory), which was Couperus' debut poem in "Het Vaderland" in 1883) were first published in the Dutch magazines "The Gids, "Het Vaderland", de "Nederlandse Spectator" (Dutch Spectator), "The Amsterdammer" and "Nederland".

In "Het Nieuws van de Dag" a critic wrote that orchids were expensive and exotic flowers and that Couperus' book was like that; everything was colored, fine and beautiful but not very Dutch.

[10] Willem Kloos, who already had written a bad critic about A ribbon of poems found Orchids "absolute trash".

[13][14] In the summer of 1894 Couperus and his wife, Elisabeth Couperus-Baud, moved to a new address, the Jacob van der Doesstreet 123 in The Hague; here he received the second print of Orchids from his publisher, L.J.

Despite the good reviews: what some people remembered were the bad ones; in 1963 the Limburgse Dagblad wrote: Couperus wrote al lot of pathetic verses (A ribbon of poems and Orchids) that are written in vain and swollen language and cause not the slightest effect.