The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72 - Hardcover

Peacock, Molly

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1608195236 ISBN 13: 9781608195237

Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA, 2011

Synopsis

Mary Delany was seventy-two years old when she noticed a petal drop from a geranium. In a flash of inspiration, she picked up her scissors and cut out a paper replica of the petal, inventing the art of collage. It was the summer of 1772, in England. During the next ten years she completed nearly a thousand cut-paper botanicals (which she called mosaicks) so accurate that botanists still refer to them. Poet-biographer Molly Peacock uses close-ups of these brilliant collages in The Paper Garden to track the extraordinary life of Delany, friend of Swift, Handel, Hogarth, and even Queen Charlotte and King George III.

How did this remarkable role model for late blooming manage it? After a disastrous teenage marriage to a drunken sixty-one-year-old squire, she took control of her own life, pursuing creative projects, spurning suitors, and gaining friends. At forty-three, she married Jonathan Swift's friend Dr. Patrick Delany, and lived in Ireland in a true expression of midlife love. But after twenty-five years and a terrible lawsuit, her husband died. Sent into a netherland of mourning, Mrs. Delany was rescued by her friend, the fabulously wealthy Duchess of Portland. The Duchess introduced Delany to the botanical adventurers of the day and a bonanza of exotic plants from Captain Cook's voyage, which became the inspiration for her art.

Peacock herself first saw Mrs. Delany's work more than twenty years before she wrote The Paper Garden, but "like a book you know is too old for you," she put the thought of the old woman away. She went on to marry and cherish the happiness of her own midlife, in a parallel to Mrs. Delany, and by chance rediscovered the mosaicks decades later. This encounter confronted the poet with her own aging and gave her-and her readers-a blueprint for late-life flexibility, creativity, and change.

About this title

Review:

[A] graceful meditation on botany, nature, life and age...Delaney's story abounds with energy as Peacock brings her alive. Like her glorious multilayered collages, Delany is so vivid a character she almost jumps from the page."-New York Times Book Review (New York Times Book Review)

A beautifully designed, eye-catching book...[The Paper Garden] is a celebration of second chances and the possibility -so attractive to those of a certain age - of an unexpected blossoming late in life.... (Washington Post)

This book layers Delany's life and work over Peacock's. It is organized by flower - forget-me-not, thistle, poppy, etc., each a metaphor for a different phase in Delany's life...the book itself is a complicated, delicate and beautiful collage. (Los Angeles Times)

Possessed of a discerning eye, Peacock...lavishes attention on Mary's life, both social and artistic, drenching us in vivid, sensory language as if we were adrift in champagne. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Physically beautiful and emotionally transporting... To call The Paper Garden a biography is to sell it short...a sumptuous bounty of gorgeous words, striking mosaics and a spirit of joy. (Chicago Tribune)

Book Description:

Peacock's exploration of the life of eighteenth century botanist, Mary
Delany, is "[a] graceful meditation on botany, nature, life and age" (NYTBR).

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1608195236
• ISBN 13: 9781608195237
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 397