The Once & Future Gardener: Garden Writing from the Golden Age of Magazines: 1900-1940 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1567921027 ISBN 13: 9781567921021

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 1999

Synopsis

The first four decades of this century provided the average American with the best magazines published in this country, as well as our most distinguished garden writing. The first national medium of mass communication, these journals had a formitive influence on American culture. Many of their garden articles were by authors we recognize today as singularly fascinating voices: Louise Beebe Wilder, Grace Tabor, Fletcher Steele, Wilhelm Miller, and Mrs. Francis King. But some of the best were by amatuers who wrote about their gardens with wonderful enthusiasm and intelligence while earning their livings in other professions.

Virginia Clayton has selected over fifty of these marvels of garden prose and arranged them in chapters covering everything from "Wild Gardens" and "Formal Gardens" to "A Year in the Garden." The book also includes photographs from the articles themselves, as well as a color plate section reproducing twenty-one glorious magazine covers.

This is truly the book for the "once and future gardener," a delightful and authoritative reference work that no serious gardener, or garden historian, should be without.

About this title

About the Author:

Virginia Clayton is an Associate Curator at the National Gallery of Art.

From Library Journal:

Clayton, associate curator of old master prints at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, introduces this anthology with a succinct history of the literature of amateur gardening and of gardening in mainstream magazines. The 59 articles she has chosen from popular pre-World War II titles such as The House Beautiful and Country Life in America cover a broad range of topics. There are literary essays by well-known professionals as well as more practical ones by amateur gardeners whose advice is often still useful. The somewhat artificial organization is by chapters ranging from "A Year in the Garden" to "Formal, Italian Gardens and the Use of Architectural Features and Furnishings." Clayton provides capsule biographies of the authors and places each selection in its historical context. Reprints of the black-and-white illustrations, plus color plates of some of the magazine covers, add to the reader's pleasure. Recommended for large public and academic libraries.
-Daniel Starr, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1567921027
• ISBN 13: 9781567921021
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312
• Editor: Clayton Virginia Tuttle