William Robinson: The Wild Gardener - Hardcover

Richard Bisgrove

4

7 ratings by Goodreads

9780711225428: William Robinson: The Wild Gardener

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0711225427 ISBN 13: 9780711225428

Publisher: Frances Lincoln Publishers, 2008

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An analysis of William Robinson -- author of The English Flower Garden (1883) -- and his remarkable contribution to gardening.

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Review:

Beautifully illustrated with photographs and contemporary drawings, William Robinson: The Wild Gardener is more than just a pretty coffee-table book - it is illuminating, well-researched and certainly not a hagiography. --House and Garden

The richness of the illustration and the beauty of the design make this a joy to look at. This valuable piece of garden history sets Robinson and his achievements pithily in context. But it is also the tribute of one fine writer to another: by quoting Robinson so extensively, and with such enjoyment, Bisgrove introduces a new generation to his roaring prose. A distant historical figure lives again in all his cussedness and passion. --BBC Gardens Illustrated

Less well known than his contemporary and journalistic collaborator, Gerturude Jekyll. It is hard to see why this is so, and Bisgrove does not pretend to have the complete answer. If you read this book, which is a considered dissection of Robinson's voluminous writings as much as a biography, it does seem almost perverse. Let us hope that this well-researched and exhaustive study will help redress the balance. --Daily Telegraph

Synopsis:

In this book Richard Bisgrove, author of the bestselling Gardens of Gertrude Jekyll, analyses William Robinson and his remarkable contribution to gardening. William Robinson (1838--1935) and Gertrude Jekyll were almost exact contemporaries and each made enormous contributions to the English garden -- and so to the gardens of the whole English-speaking and Anglophile world -- but in rather different ways. Robinson, more than any other gardener, was responsible for sweeping away the carpet bedding of the Victorians and promoting a more relaxed style using hardy plants. His voluminous writings have been hugely influential. The English Flower Garden (1883) has been described as 'the most widely read and influential gardening book ever written'. The Wild Garden(1870) runs it close. As a man he was something of a paradox -- an Irish bachelor who is widely regarded as the father of the English flower garden, a theorist who scorned theorizing and an author who wrote with passion -- and simultaneously -- about the technicalities of mushroom cultivation and the picturesque treatment of a thousand-acre estate.Illustrations include engravings from Robinson's books and contemporary watercolours, as well as photographs of Robinsonian gardens -- especially his own garden at Gravetye Manor.

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