A blush is a gulp, a glitch, a stammer, a flutter, a flinch. A blush is hot. A blush is an index of confusion. A blush, according to Darwin, is ‘the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions’. A blush says something and it speaks true … Texts by Jack Robinson (with citations from a range of fiction and non-fiction) and colour photographs by Natalia Zagórska-Thomas (including many of her own artwork) investigate the cultural and social history of the blush from the late 18th century to the present day.