A Vision of Eden: The Life and Work of Marianne North

by Marianne North

Marianne North, an unmarried middle-aged Victorian lady of comfortable means, set off in 1871 on her first expedition to make a pictorial record of the tropical and exotic plants of the world. The fascinating story of her travels is told in this abridged and lavishly illustrated version of her memoirs and autobiography, first published in 1893. Marianne produced more than 800 paintings and they are housed in a special gallery at Kew.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Science Nature, Plants, Biography, Travel

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Marianne North was a prolific English Victorian biologist and botanical artist, notable for her plant and landscape paintings, her extensive foreign travels, her writings, her plant discoveries and the creation of her gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Reviews

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The long hard journeys were over, and, alas, with them was gone the greater portion of that indomitable strength which had seemed never to flag, which had carried her triumphantly trough poisonous climates, never breaking down under incessant work, fatigue, bad food, and all those hardships which few women, travelling absolutely alone, would have dared to face. I have often thought how much her natural stately presence, and simple yet dignified manner helped her in facing all sorts and conditions of men in those long distant journeys. She inspired respect wherever she appeared, and good men everywhere were ready and eager to help her. Her work was always her first point: for she travelled, not to pass time, as so many mere globe-trotters do, in this age of easy locomotion. Her gallery at Kew is a monumental work: to finish it se fought bravely against increasing weakness; when it was done her strength was also gone, and the restful life she had dreamed of in her pretty Gloucestershire garden was not to be.

What an admirable and amazing woman!

[Bea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took this down from my shelf as a gentle bedtime book. It is a recurring joy.

Excerpts from the diary of one of the 'Travelling Englishwomen' of the 19th century. Starting at age 40 when her father died, MN travelled to many countries, indefatiguably painting the flora and fauna she encountered.

The journal reads as a fairly commonplace travelogue, of the places she goes to, with brief mentions of the many people she meets and woth whom she stays. She clearly had the entree into the homes of important British people throughout the world. It is an unchallenging read for falling asleep.

My copy includes reproductions of a number of her paintings. These are workmanlike and richly coloured.

The pleasure of the book is in her energy and commitment to the life she decided on, when left bereft by her father's death. And in the interest, for me, in learnign of the building she endowed at Kew gardens, where her paintings and other items she collected are all on show. Even the photographs suggest a place for a kind of artistic indigestion.

But I find her writing, and her life and work, interesting and endearing. A woman of character and strength.

[A.L. Lester · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the books I read as background for Edie's character in The Flowers of Time. Although she lived a century after the intrepid Edie travelled to the Himalayas to document the local flora, Marianne North was a great inspiration. This is a lovely book, with beautiful pictures of her work and I still come back to it regularly.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun for readers who are into intrepid travellers and botany. The books offers selections from North's lively, cheerful accounts of her travels and color reproductions of her attractive botanical paintings.

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well Marianne North was certainly prolific and certainly travelled a lot ...and used her connections extensively. And she has a whole gallery dedicated to her work. I guess it helps when one donates the gallery plus the paintings. However, i find her work bordering on the coarse side ......mostly it seems done in haste so she could move on to the next site. They are good but not great. And I have decided that I don't need a copy of this book in my collection so I'm donating the book to LifeLine, Two stars from me.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this as part of an assignment on my level 4 Botanical illustrations and drawing course.
Beautifully presented in word and photos a biography of a pioneering victoriana women. Well before her time.

[Stephen Brody · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a shortened version, with plenty of colour illustrations, of two volumes Marianne North aptly titled Recollections of a Happy Life. I think that sums her up very well, and indeed I can imagine few more happy and enviable existences. Already accustomed with her father, she became an intrepid traveller at the age of forty and went to every outpost of the British Empire and beyond, painting incessantly local flora and scenes. They're accomplished though not especially great paintings, she had no interest in technique and the 'criticism' of the fashionable art world, but she was a very accurate observer and in due course despite the carping of the critics achieved a modest fame. Nor was she an especially great writer even though an entertaining one. What is interesting is to compare her adventures with the predictable routines of most latter-day 'holiday-makers'. To go independently anywhere worth going to in the 19th century required stamina and daring. Miss North used whatever means were available, uttering only a mild complaint about occasional extreme discomfort; of course in spite of an aversion to "grand people" she was well-protected everywhere she went by letters of introduction, a very reasonable precaution for a respectable maiden lady with no great worldly knowledge except from her own experiences. Her observations are no more than might be expected from someone of her background and the creditable thing is that she persevered regardless. But the real value of these recollections is the fascinating glimpses of the world as it was just before it was all despoiled by human ravages and covered with dreary uniformity, Rio de Janeiro for instance still being a vast natural garden, though the process of destruction was already under way: "it broke one's heart to think of man, the civilizer, wasting treasures in a few years to which savages and animals had done no harm for centuries".