The Writer's Garden

See inside the gardens where literary giants from Tolstoy to Agatha Christie created some of their finest works in this visually stunning and fascinating book. Discover the flower gardens, vegetable plots, landscapes and writing hideaways of 30 great authors – from Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Orchard House’ where she wrote Little Women and Agatha Christie at Greenway, to Virginia Woolf at Monk’s House and the Massachusetts home of Edith Wharton.

Fully illustrated with specially commissioned photography plus archive images, and spanning centuries and continents, this book visits the homes and gardens that inspired novelists, poets and playwrights. It shows how outdoor spaces were important to writers in many different ways and offers insight into the lives and creative processes of beloved authors.

Writers featured include:

Jane Austen at Godmersham and Chawton, Agatha Christie at Greenway, Beatrix Potter at Hill Top, Roald Dahl at Gipsy House, Virginia Woolf at Monk’s House, Walter Scott, Thomas Hardy at Hardy’s Cottage and Max Gate , Robert Burns at Ellisland, William Wordsworth at Cockermouth and Grasmere, Rudyard Kipling at Bateman’s, Louisa May Alcott at Orchard House, Emily Dickinson at The Homestead, Amherst, Beatrix Farrand, Mount Desert Island, Maine, Elizabeth Lawrence, Winghaven Gardens, F Scott Fitzgerald in Montgomery, Robert Frost at Derry, Ernest Hemingway in Florida, Jack London at Beauty Ranch and Wolf House, Henry David Thoreau at Thoreau Farm & Walden Pond, Mark Twain at Hartford, Alice Walker in Eatonton, Georgia, Marcel Proust, Illiers Combray, Georges Sand, Nohant, Nr Chatelroux, Emile Zola, Medan South of Paris, Herman Hesse, Casa Camuzzi, Lake Lugano, Weimer Group: Goethe, Christoph Martin Wieland & Schiller, Alessandro Manzoni, Milan and Lake Como, Tolstoy, Yasnay Polyana Estate, Moscow.

This deeply insightful book sheds new light on some of literature's greatest works, offers rare glimpses into the lives of these brilliant minds, and showcases in stunning full colour the gardens in which these writers spent their time.

About the Authors

Jackie Bennett has travelled widely, visiting and writing about gardens. Her books include Shakespeare’s Gardens, The Writer’s Garden, Wild About the Garden and Island Gardens. She is a former editor of The Garden Design Journal and The English Garden.

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.