Literary Gardens by Sandra Lawrence, illustrated by Lucille Clerc

 

This beautiful book looks at a number of fictional gardens, selected to offer a range of different types of gardens in different geographical locations and different genres of writing and including the sacred (the ancient Hindi epic Ramayana by legendary poet Valmiki) the famous (such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll) and the less well known (including Jorge Luis Borges' The Garden of Forking Paths.) Each garden is lovingly recreated in exquisitely detailed paintings by Lucille Clerc, while Sandra Lawrence explores the role of each garden in its particular story and explores the inspirations that might have fed into the author's creation. 

The first fictional garden to be discussed, is unsurprisingly, the garden of Misselthwaite Manor which appears in the 1911 classic The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, who was herself a keen gardener. The garden, that we are told is mostly fictional, and the robin that lives there (based on a robin that Hodgson Burnett befriended in her own garden) serve to enable the protagonist Mary to discover her best self. In contrast, the garden in Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden (a book that is forever, in my mind, connected to The Secret Garden by the trope of a child discovering a garden) is closely modelled on the author's own garden. Whether entirely fictional or closely inspired by real gardens, these are well described gardens. The garden in Patrick White's The Hanging Garden. however, is shown only obliquely as if the adults reading the novel aren't allowed to trespass into this garden where the young protagonists play. (This book is now on my wishlist, as I love White's writing, his wonderfully odd style that makes the reader look at things in a different way.) Another garden that is barely described is that in The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twen Eng, which uses the garden as metaphor for the impermanence of life. (I now want to re-read this book.) The maze in Larry's Party by Carol Shields is largely inspired by the author's own love of mazes, as is the protagonist's tour of mazes across Europe. The weirdest garden of all must be that of Death in Terry Pratchett's Mort, where everything is black and where shovelling manure may (or may not) turn out to reveal the uttermost secret of time and space. 

The differing responses of characters to gardens is also explored, from Hercule Poirot's discomfort in Agatha Christie's The Hallowe'en Garden and the rabbits' fear of the gardener in Beatrix Potter's Tale of Peter Rabbit. Gardens are often presented as havens, not least in Giorgio Bassani's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, where the characters find short-lived refuge from the realities of Mussolini's Italy. Another well-used trope is that of the garden gate as a portal, as in H G Wells' story The Door in the Wall, in which the main character repeatedly passes by the door to his dream garden without taking the chance to enter the garden itself. 

As well as the gardens themselves, Literary Gardens looks at plants, including entirely fictional plants (such as the triffids in John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids), poisonous plants (for example in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Rappaccini's Daughter) and 'world trees' including the Tree of Knowledge from the Bible and Yggrdrasil,from Nordic legend. I was interested to read that Alexandre Dumas' The Black Tulip, set during the historical Dutch tulip mania, set off a quest that is still going today, to grow a perfectly black tulip. 

It's worth giving a good long look at the illustrations. The details are amazing - that really looks like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall hidden away in the orchid house in the illustration for Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep and how many bunnies can you find in the illustration for The Tale of Peter Rabbit? 

Other works mentioned include the short stories The Enchanted Garden by Italo Calvino (whose parents were botanists) and Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf; Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca; Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim (Mary Annette Beauchamp); The Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis; Sei Shonagen's Pillow Book; My Garden (Book) by Jamaica Kincaid, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros; The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Scene Two of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Not only a wonderfully vivid recreation of a variety of fictional gardens, this book also acts as a themed collection of literary reviews and as a guide on how to use gardens and plants in creating atmosphere in stories. After reading this, you'll not only want to re-read it again and enjoy the paintings, but you're likely to end up with a whole list of other books to read or re-read. 

Literary Gardens by Sandra Lawrence, illustrated by Lucille Clerc, published (18 September, 2025) by Frances Lincoln, an imprint of Quarto. 

Note: I was sent a free pdf of this book in return for an honest review.