Virago Book of Women Gardeners

The full title of this anthology is "The Illustrated Virgo Book of Women Gardeners". Virago is the division of international publisher Little, Brown & Co that pays serious attention to women's writing. They chose an editor who is herself a student of English Literature as well as a gardener and gave her the daunting task of selecting the most evocative writing from the pens of devoted women gardeners of the last few centuries.Deciding what to leave out must have been far more difficult than choosing what to include. The editor says "The book aims to be useful, to inspire or amuse. But another editor, even given these three aims, might well have made an entirely different selection." One choice that had to be made was that, with two exceptions, the book contains no fiction. The first exception, and the first extract, is from Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The sEcret Garden".The editor has divided this anthology into ten sections, starting with "Weeders and Diggers" and ending with "Visionaries". You'll find many famous garden names in there and also some that are new to you. You'll find writers from over a hundred years ago and modern writers, writers with vast acres and paid gardeners with small back gardens and soil under their finger nails. There is a beautifully illustrated section on flower arranging (which is an advanced art in England) and bracing words written by Gertrude Jekyll in 1899 ""I have no patience with slovenly planting..."This anthology is handsomely illustrated, showcasing the work of women photographers. Buy this book for a woman friend or treat yourself to it. You can open it at any page, the extract coming from any century, and you know you are in the company of friends.