Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71186 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-11
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

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

About the Author
Richard Bisgrove is the director of the Landscape Management degree course at Reading University. He has designed gardens in Britain and the United States and lectures internationally on the history of garden design and on the work of Gertrude Jekyll.