Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life
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Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Classic Children's Tales Hardcover – November 5, 2013
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Part of the charm and eye-delighting intricacy of Beatrix Potter’s beloved children’s books about such endearing and enduring characters as Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck are the precisely and vitally rendered illustrations of the English gardens, farms, and landscapes her characters so actively occupy. In this sumptuously illustrated “gardening biography,” horticultural consultant McDowell, who is fascinated by writers who garden (her first book was Emily Dickinson’s Gardens, 2004), fully illuminates Potter’s deep botanical knowledge and joy in cultivation. When publishers rejected her first attempt at a children’s book, Potter self-published The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902, launching a brilliant career. When she purchased Hill Top Farm in the fabled Lake District, she set out on the path that led to her becoming an intrepid gardener, savvy landowner, sheep breeder, and conservationist, ultimately leaving thousands of pristine acres to the National Trust. With wit and expertise, McDowell highlights the stamp of Potter’s horticultural know-how on her indelible books and chronicles a year in her exuberant gardens to create a visually exciting, pleasurably informative appreciation of Potter’s devotion to art and nature. --Donna Seaman
Review
“You may well want to buy a copy to keep and several to give friends... the book is a visual delight.”
“Gardeners brought up on the mishaps of Peter Rabbit can now curl up with Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life … This work brings Potter, as much as her garden, to life, as an energetic, sturdy soul with an uncanny understanding of animals.”
“McDowell leads her readers on a virtual tour of the gardens that were important in Potter's life and provides season-by-season descriptions of the flowered landscapes the author created at Hill Top Farm and Castle Cottage."
“A volume rich with photographs and Potter's own enchanting sketches and watercolors.”
"McDowell brings to light a delightfully different side of the celebrated author... The book recounts Potter's life through a gardening lens and is copiously illustrated with her sketches and watercolors of plants."
"A beautiful book that gives a strong sense of the strong and practical woman that Potter was. Nearly every page has a photograph or delicate painting from one of her books… a visual feast."
“One of the best books this year for the gardener on your holiday gift list… a gem.”
“Illustrated on every page with scenes from Potter’s life and her botanical illustrations… If you love gardening, you will love this book.”
“In this visually charming book, McDowell takes us from her childhood summers in the country to her adult homes and gardens.”
“A richly illustrated exploration of Beatrix Potter's evolution as an author-illustrator, gardener, sheep farmer and land preservationist.”
“Potter springs to life from the pages of this fascinating and beautiful book.”
“Stir your imagination… a biography written through plants.”
“McDowell traces the journey of Potter the gardener, which is inextricable linked to Potter the writer... A fascinating insight into how Potter's writing and passion for plants (she experimented with a wide variety of species and was a prodigious propagator) fed each other."
“Gardening lovers and children's literature lovers alike will find beauty in these pages of photographs and stories about Beatrix Potter and her characters and flowers."
“Illustrated throughout with Potter’s charming watercolors and historic photographs, this book is a delightful exploration of the landscape that inspired one of the world’s great authors… about as charming as a garden book can be.”
“Rich with photographs and Potter’s watercolors, this is destined to be a coffee table classic.”
“Brings the reader into the life of the beloved author and illustrator… chock-full of wonderful photographs of Potter and her gardens... a book to banish winter blues.”
“This is not an historical novel with a plot, but neither is it a mere documentary of facts. It is the perfect blend of both.”
“Horticulturalist McDowell tells of famed children's author Beatrix Potter's magnificent garden on Hill Top Farm, in England. Filled with vivid descriptions, photographs, maps, illustrations, and quotes from Potter, this book details the landscape that provided inspiration for some of the most well-known childhood tales of all time.”
“The first book to explore Beatrix Potter's garden and how it influenced her children's stories... A great gift book for old and new fans alike."
"You will be charmed by this book."
More About the Author
Marta lives, gardens and writes in Chatham, New Jersey. She teaches landscape history and gardening at the New York Botanical Garden, where she studied landscape design, and Drew University. She was named "Instructor of the Year" for the New York Botanical Garden in 2011.
She is particularly interested in the relationship between the pen and the trowel -- authors who garden. Her book, Emily Dickinson's Gardens, was published by McGraw-Hill in 2005. Her book on Beatrix Potter's gardening interests is due out from Timber Press in October 2013.
Marta was a founder of the Chatham Community Garden and is on the board of the NJ Historical Foundation at the Cross Estate in Bernardsville. Her husband, Kirke Bent, summarizes her biography as "I am therefore I dig."
She is particularly interested in the relationship between the pen and the trowel -- authors who garden. Her book, Emily Dickinson's Gardens, was published by McGraw-Hill in 2005. Her book on Beatrix Potter's gardening interests is due out from Timber Press in October 2013.
Marta was a founder of the Chatham Community Garden and is on the board of the NJ Historical Foundation at the Cross Estate in Bernardsville. Her husband, Kirke Bent, summarizes her biography as "I am therefore I dig."
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
47 of 47 people found the following review helpful
By
Leslie Readit
on November 13, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition
2 Comments
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A Review of "Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life"
The plants and places that inspired the classic children's tales
By Marta McDowell
Only rarely in a reader's life will a book come along a book that is so perfectly suited for the reader's character that it brings out the schoolgirl in her and perhaps a squeal of delight and a series of silly, wistful sighs.
Reader, that is what Marta McDowell's latest book has done for me. I admit I didn't exactly love her book on Emily's Dickinson's garden but perhaps it was just my lack of enthusiasm for Dickinson herself that underwhelmed me. What a contrast is this treasure before me now. Shall I tell you all the things I love about it?
The cover is what delights the eyes at once. Part of the wonder of Beatrix Potter was that she was an amazingly accomplished artist, even from a young age. The cover is beautiful and includes a watercolor of a sweet garden gate, another of a handful of adorable little guinea pigs busy at their vegetable patch (both done by Potter, of course) and a wonderful old black and white photograph of Potter herself looking young and radiant with a posy under her nose. The colors are charming in the way that all her watercolors are.
Of course that sent me, with schoolgirl squeals, diving into the book where I was happy to discover a most generous selection of photographs and examples of her art; watercolors, sketches and even maps of the places important in her life.
The book is organized into three main parts. The first is about her life in general and all the people and places that influenced her work and her gardening. The photographs of these people and places are the best collection of such that I've seen.
The second part is about "The Year in Beatrix Potter's Garden".Read more ›
The plants and places that inspired the classic children's tales
By Marta McDowell
Only rarely in a reader's life will a book come along a book that is so perfectly suited for the reader's character that it brings out the schoolgirl in her and perhaps a squeal of delight and a series of silly, wistful sighs.
Reader, that is what Marta McDowell's latest book has done for me. I admit I didn't exactly love her book on Emily's Dickinson's garden but perhaps it was just my lack of enthusiasm for Dickinson herself that underwhelmed me. What a contrast is this treasure before me now. Shall I tell you all the things I love about it?
The cover is what delights the eyes at once. Part of the wonder of Beatrix Potter was that she was an amazingly accomplished artist, even from a young age. The cover is beautiful and includes a watercolor of a sweet garden gate, another of a handful of adorable little guinea pigs busy at their vegetable patch (both done by Potter, of course) and a wonderful old black and white photograph of Potter herself looking young and radiant with a posy under her nose. The colors are charming in the way that all her watercolors are.
Of course that sent me, with schoolgirl squeals, diving into the book where I was happy to discover a most generous selection of photographs and examples of her art; watercolors, sketches and even maps of the places important in her life.
The book is organized into three main parts. The first is about her life in general and all the people and places that influenced her work and her gardening. The photographs of these people and places are the best collection of such that I've seen.
The second part is about "The Year in Beatrix Potter's Garden".Read more ›
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
By
Lois-ellin Datta
on November 15, 2013
Format: Hardcover
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Marta McDowell's "Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life" is almost sure to delight all who lovingly remember the stories of Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, and Jemima Puddle-Duck which readied us for meeting Mole, Water Rat, Toad, and Badger. Even better, if these admirers of Beatrix Potter are slightly mad about gardens and wander in their dreams among the dreaming spires of English foxgloves & delphiniums. (In this review, as in McDowell's book, Beatrix Potter is sometimes referred to as Beatrix, sometimes as Beatrix Potter, and after her marriage, sometimes as Mrs. Heelis. Hopefully, this won't be confusing.)
This richly created book offers on almost every page superbly reproduced water colors of landscapes, plants, and the small creatures of hedgerow and streams, or photographs of the more than 10 homes in which Beatrix lived and gardened. No one, not even Durer, has drawn bunnies like Beatrix Potter, bunnies with the softest fur, and on p. 106, the roundest tummies, as six lie together sleeping off the soporific effects of a lettuce orgy.
Part One of this three part tale describes Beatix Potter's life in McDowell's framework of a plant: germination, offshoots, flowering, roots, ripening, and setting seed (140 pages bursting with the child's precociously talented paintings through her final flowering as a conservationist who wills 4,000 acres of Lake District lands to the National Trust).
Beatrix was the only daughter of second generation wealth. To her supremely status-conscious parents, almost no one was good enough for her company or her love, making her early life lonely. She turned to drawing & botanical research.Read more ›
This richly created book offers on almost every page superbly reproduced water colors of landscapes, plants, and the small creatures of hedgerow and streams, or photographs of the more than 10 homes in which Beatrix lived and gardened. No one, not even Durer, has drawn bunnies like Beatrix Potter, bunnies with the softest fur, and on p. 106, the roundest tummies, as six lie together sleeping off the soporific effects of a lettuce orgy.
Part One of this three part tale describes Beatix Potter's life in McDowell's framework of a plant: germination, offshoots, flowering, roots, ripening, and setting seed (140 pages bursting with the child's precociously talented paintings through her final flowering as a conservationist who wills 4,000 acres of Lake District lands to the National Trust).
Beatrix was the only daughter of second generation wealth. To her supremely status-conscious parents, almost no one was good enough for her company or her love, making her early life lonely. She turned to drawing & botanical research.Read more ›
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By
coopie710
on November 13, 2013
Format: Hardcover
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What a wonderful book written from such an interesting perspective. Or, maybe I should say the chapter titles aren't what they appear to be. Such a delightful book to look at the illustrations while reading the eminently readable story of Beatrix Potter.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By
gwiz
on December 5, 2013
Format: Hardcover
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Beautifully captured story of a quiet, creative genius that through a medium of gardening and wildlife and botany study found her calling. Beatrix Potter was a writer, painter and gardener who lived an admirable life and left a legacy worth emulating. McDowell respected Potter's uniqueness, quirks and gathered together stories, photos and watercolors that leaves us understanding more about her than ever before. I am sure that others have written accounts of Potter that should be read; however, I am so glad that I came across this particular biography by this particular author and I am sure that Beatrix Potter would have approved of how her life was approached.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By
J. Hensel
on April 28, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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This is a must read book for fans of children's literature, gardening and
watercolor painting. The writing is very engaging. You feel you are there
in England . You can't wait to start working in your own garden or community garden.
watercolor painting. The writing is very engaging. You feel you are there
in England . You can't wait to start working in your own garden or community garden.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By
Genevra Higginson
on April 2, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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This little book is a real treasure, for anyone who loves gardens, and especially, anyone who has grown up loving Beatrix Potter. I am very glad to have it, and plan to give many copies to friends.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By
Donna Lee Brier
on April 6, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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The dvd, " Miss Potter" and the book, Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That... were charming. Great viewing and great reading.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By
Lee Anderson
on March 24, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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This book has good photos and information; it is well laid out book with ample pictures and easy to follow text.
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