The Morville Hours: The Story of a Garden - Hardcover

Swift, Katherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802717535 ISBN 13: 9780802717535

Publisher: Walker & Co, 2009

Synopsis

An exquisitely written book about one particular English garden—and about the arc of life.

Nobody writes about gardens like the English. And few English writers have ever been as eloquent or astute as Katherine Swift. Some twenty years ago, she and her husband leased a house in the town of Shropshire with a garden that became her passion. Driven to uncover its history, she takes readers on a journey back through time, linking the stories of those who lived in the house and tended the same red soil with her family's own saga. Spanning hundreds of years, The Morville Hours is also deeply personal—a journey through the seasons and also one of self-exploration, of finding one's place in the world and putting down roots.

With each chapter bringing to life an hour of the day or night—from the crunch of grass underfoot at midnight on a frosty New Year's Eve to the bloom of blue-black damsons picked on a golden September afternoon—Swift pulls us into her world and, at the same time, expands and illuminates our own. For anyone with a passion for gardens and gardening, The Morville Hours will be unforgettable.

About this title

Review:

'A magical book. I have read it twice now. I love the richness of Katherine Swift's prose; the flashes of her family's story that are scattered through the deliciously written text; the gorgeous detail. The Morville Hours is the most beautiful book I have read in years' Nigel Slater 'An intriguing, magical story of a place, a person and her plants' Anna Pavord, author of The Naming of Names 'A truly remarkable book that is both intimate and universal. We are left with a renewed sense of what it is to be human, and of how we make our place in a world that is intricate, unpredictable and filled with quotidian mysteries' Daily Telegraph 'This is gardening writing at its best. Swift's prose brings the garden alive in all its details, scents and meaning ... Evocative, heartfelt and magical' Guardian

About the Author:

Katherine Swift lives at the Dower House, Morville Hall, Shropshire, England. She worked as a rare-book librarian in Oxford and Dublin before becoming a full-time gardener and writer in 1988. She was for four years the gardening columnist of the Times.

About this edition

• Publisher: Walker & Co
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0802717535
• ISBN 13: 9780802717535
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368