Bringing together garden and landscape history, history of ideas and biography,
English Garden Eccentrics analyses an area of garden history that has scarcely been previously explored: gardens seen as expressions of the singular and striking character of their makers, and therefore functioning, in effect, as a form of autobiography.
Embarking on a series of relatively short chapters on individual gardens and gardeners, this pioneering study closely examines what it is about the gardener and his or her creation that can be seen as eccentric. This introduces a unique academic approach to the more usual historical focus on well-known landscape designers, particular aesthetic (such as the picturesque) or the politics of landscape, calling on gardeners today to learn from example and dare to be eccentric. Presented in a lucid and rigorously argued way,
English Garden Eccentrics' impressive range of reference establishes illuminating links with highly diverse aspects of the visual and literary culture of the period, making it a lively and accessible read for scholars both within and beyond the field.
