The Lost Garden: A Novel - Hardcover

Humphreys, Helen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393051838 ISBN 13: 9780393051834

Publisher: WW Norton & Co, 2002

Synopsis

This Word-Perfect, heartbreaking novel is set in early 1941 in Britain when the war seems endless and, perhaps, hopeless. London is on fire from the Blitz, and a young woman gardener named Gwen Davis flees from the burning city for the Devon countryside. She has volunteered for the Land Army, and is to be in charge of a group of young girls who will be trained to plant food crops on an old country estate where the gardens have fallen into ruin. Also on the estate, waiting to be posted, is a regiment of Canadian soldiers. For three months, the young women and men will form attachments, living in a temporary rural escape. No one will be more changed by the stay than Gwen. She will inspire the girls to restore the estate gardens, fall in love with a soldier, find her first deep friendship, and bring a lost garden, created for a great love, back to life. While doing so, she will finally come to know herself and a life worth living.

About this title

Review:

A perfect gem of a book. -- Carol Goodman, author of The Lake of Dead Languages

A refreshingly unabashed attempt to locate the indelible but so often secreted nature of love and loss. -- Matthew Batt, San Francisco Chronicle

Shrewdly brief, The Lost Garden embraces the huge and fascinating philosophy of beauty and mourning with devotion and technical discernment. -- Globe and Mail

There is... a gracefulness to her writing, a fluidity that tempts one to read passages aloud just to hear them. -- Toronto Star

[a] beautifully crafted and bittersweet coming-of-age story...Humphreys writes with a poetic sensibility. -- Booklist

Synopsis:

Leaving war-stricken London in 1941, Gwen Davis volunteers for the Land Army in the Devon countryside where she oversees a group of girls who plant crops for the war effort beside a regiment of Canadian soldiers. 17,000 first printing.

About this edition

• Publisher: WW Norton & Co
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0393051838
• ISBN 13: 9780393051834
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192