The Garden

by L.A.G. Strong

The Garden is set in Dublin in the early years of the twentieth century.Dermot, whose family has settled in England, returns for his summers from English Public School to visit his Grandfather, and develops affection for the city. During the course of the novel, war breaks out, bringing an end to the Edwardian summer for a whole generation...

351 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1931

About the author

Leonard Alfred George Strong (1896 – 17 August 1958) was a highly popular English novelist, critic, historian and poet, and published under the name "L. A. G. Strong." He served as a director of the publishers Methuen Ltd. from 1938 to 1958.

Strong was a versatile and prolific writer of more than 20 novels, as well as of short stories, plays, children's books, poems, biography, criticism, and film scripts.

Reviews

[Glafira Osypets · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last week I had an opportunity to finish a book by the famous English novelist Leonard Strong. It was one of his first works, published in the early 1930s, but surprisingly good and hitting the most sensitive chords. Before one’s eyes unfolds the life of Dermot, an English boy who spends his summers in early 1900s Ireland with his grandfather, grandmother, a housemaid and a domesticated monkey. The descriptions are typical for the literature of that time – a big focus is putten onto descriptons of the countryside, interiors, clothing of the characters, creating the cosy atmosphere of a well-nurtured Irish countryside and English house. From a little boy who loved to visit a church with his grandmother and play with Paddy-monkey on the lap of his grandfather, the reader observes a slow metamorphosis of Dermot into a teenage boy. His summers in Ireland during his time are no different from every other summer of every other teenager – with doubtful friends, adventures, hidden from his parents, and with first conflicts with his family. Though what Dermot also loved was sitting on the second floor of the tram and admiring the Irish Sea – which modern people will not experience. The last chapter ends with Dermot discovering his love for the sea and marine art, and with his departure back to England in July 1914.
Next follows the epilogue several years later. This part of the book had struck me the most, and that is why I admire it so much. First World War started one month after Dermot returned to England, and he went there as a young soldier. Nobody in the book mentioned the exact date of the events mentioned, so it was impossible to predict what would happen next; and that is why the fate of Dermot is so hard to accept. The reader had a unique opportunity to follow his entire life until the sudden news of war, as it happened with real soldiers and their families. Though I had not read much literature dedicated to WWI, ‘The Garden’ is one of the strongest anti-war campaigns and works that ever passed through my hands.