Book Description:

Great things happen in gardens. No one can doubt the importance of the garden in Roald Dahl’s life as it was here where he worked, and here that he created James and the Giant Peach. And where would Jane Austen have been if she had never seen a ‘walk’, an ornamental lake, or a wilderness?

Gardens hold a special place in many author’s lives. For Beatrix Potter, Hill Top house was made possible by the new found freedom and wealth that a literary career can bring; for Sir Walter Scott, laying out his garden at Abbotsford was a way of distracting himself from mounting debts.

In this book of 18 gardens and 20 writers, the author examines how the poet, writer, novelist derived a creative spirit from their private garden, how they tended and enjoyed their gardens, and how they managed their outdoor space.

My Thoughts:

Jane Austen, Rupert Brooke, John Ruskin, Agatha Christe, Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill, Laurence Sterne, George Bernard Shaw, Ted Hughes, Henry James, John Clare, Thomas Hardy, Robert Burns, William Wordworth, Walter Scott, and Rudyard Kipling each have their own chapter in this book.  What do they all have in common?  They all loved and got inspiration from their gardens.

The Writer’s Garden is a coffee table style book stuffed full with pictures of the author’s gardens.  I know some coffee style books are best for browsing rather than reading but believe me, if you are a literature lover or fans of any of the authors in this book, you will want to read it!

Jackie Bennett talks about each author’s garden but also about the authors themselves.  For instance, she talks about Jane Austen’s childhood, siblings, and the one man who “left a deep impression on Jane- it was to be her only true affair of the heart.”   She covers the authors from childhood to death.

The photographs by Richard Hanson, left a lasting impression on me.  I felt like I was walking in each garden with the authors I read about.  The photos and writing go together seamlessly.

I love this book so much that I already ordered a copy for my mother in-law.  She loved classic authors and I know she has read several of these.  It will be the perfect gift for her.  My one and only grip with it is that I find coffee style books hard to hold and get comfortable with to read.  I would love a companion book that has just the written part.  Something I can curl up with.

Highly Recommended! It would make the perfect gift for literature lovers!

5/5

I received this book for my honest review.

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About Jackie Bennett:

JACKIE BENNETT is a former editor of The Garden Design Journal, the English Garden Magazine and Gardening with the National Trust. She began her career in television, producing gardening and natural history programmes before become a full time writer. In 1990, she won an award for nature writing in the BBC Wildlife Magazine Awards and her books include The Wildlife Garden Month by Month (David & Charles 1990 – reissued in 2011), The Cottage Garden andWild About the Garden (1997 a Channel 4 tie-in book for the TV series presented by Carol Klein).

She won the Garden Writer’s Guild Gardening Column of the Year 2009 for a series about her own Norfolk garden. Jackie has studied garden design and landscape history. She runs writing workshops for the Society of Garden Designers and for the Cambridge and Oxford Botanic Gardens.

About Richard Hanson:

RICHARD HANSON’S work has appeared in books and magazines and he has photographed in the gardens of well-known garden writers such as Helen Yemm, Ursula Buchan, Francine Raymond and Ronald Blythe.  His photography has been featured in The Garden Design Journal, and Gardening with the National Trust.  His seasonal photographs of Houghton Hall in Norfolk were published monthly in The English Garden Magazine in 2010.