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The Ghost in the Garden: In Search of Darwin’s Lost Garden
The forgotten garden which inspired Charles Darwin becomes the modern-day setting for an exploration of memory, family, and the legacy of genius.
Darwin never stopped thinking about the garden at his childhood home, The Mount. It was here, under the tutelage of his green-fingered mother and sisters, that he first examined the reproductive life of flowers, collected birds’ eggs, and began the experiments that would lead to his theory of evolution.
A century and a half later, with one small child in tow and another on the way, Jude Piesse finds herself living next door to this secret garden. Two acres of the original site remain, now resplendent with overgrown ashes, sycamores, and hollies. The carefully tended beds and circular flower garden are buried under suburban housing; the hothouses where the Darwins and their skilful gardeners grew pineapples are long gone. Walking the pathways with her new baby, Piesse starts to discover what impact the garden and the people who tended it had on Darwin’s work.
Blending biography, nature writing, and memoir, The Ghost in the Garden traces the origins of the theory of evolution and uncovers the lost histories that inspired it, ultimately evoking the interconnectedness of all things.
Darwin never stopped thinking about the garden at his childhood home, The Mount. It was here, under the tutelage of his green-fingered mother and sisters, that he first examined the reproductive life of flowers, collected birds’ eggs, and began the experiments that would lead to his theory of evolution.
A century and a half later, with one small child in tow and another on the way, Jude Piesse finds herself living next door to this secret garden. Two acres of the original site remain, now resplendent with overgrown ashes, sycamores, and hollies. The carefully tended beds and circular flower garden are buried under suburban housing; the hothouses where the Darwins and their skilful gardeners grew pineapples are long gone. Walking the pathways with her new baby, Piesse starts to discover what impact the garden and the people who tended it had on Darwin’s work.
Blending biography, nature writing, and memoir, The Ghost in the Garden traces the origins of the theory of evolution and uncovers the lost histories that inspired it, ultimately evoking the interconnectedness of all things.
322 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
13 people are currently reading
155 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 15, 2021
When Piesse’s academic career took her back to her home county of Shropshire, she became fascinated by the Darwin family home in Shrewsbury, The Mount. A Victorian specialist, she threw herself into research on the family and particularly on the traces of the garden. Her thesis is that here, and on long walks through the surrounding countryside, Darwin developed the field methods and careful attention that would serve him well as the naturalist on board the Beagle. Piesse believes the habit of looking closely was shared by Darwin and his mother, Susannah. The author contrasts Susannah’s experience of childrearing with her own – she has two young daughters when she returns to Shropshire, and has to work out a balance between work and motherhood. I noted that Darwin lost his mother early – early parent loss is considered a predictor of high achievement (it links one-third of U.S. presidents, for instance).
I think what Piesse was attempting here was something like Rebecca Mead’s wonderful My Life in Middlemarch, but the links just aren’t strong enough: There aren’t that many remnants of the garden or the Darwins here (all the family artefacts are at Down House in Kent), and Piesse doesn’t even step foot into The Mount itself until page 217. I enjoyed her writing about her domestic life and her desire to create a green space, however small, for her daughters, but this doesn’t connect to the Darwin material. Despite my fondness for Victoriana, I was left asking myself what the point of this project was.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
I think what Piesse was attempting here was something like Rebecca Mead’s wonderful My Life in Middlemarch, but the links just aren’t strong enough: There aren’t that many remnants of the garden or the Darwins here (all the family artefacts are at Down House in Kent), and Piesse doesn’t even step foot into The Mount itself until page 217. I enjoyed her writing about her domestic life and her desire to create a green space, however small, for her daughters, but this doesn’t connect to the Darwin material. Despite my fondness for Victoriana, I was left asking myself what the point of this project was.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
August 24, 2021
This is book 20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2021.
I found this to be a refreshing and illuminating memoir, combining the fascinating life of Charles Darwin and his family alongside that of the author who finds herself living nearby to his childhood garden at The Mount in Shrewsbury. She'd often walk past the property and the land that is now run partly by The Shropshire Wildlife Trust and she becomes intrigued by the impact that the garden may have had on his outlook and interest into the natural world that he took on to bigger things as he grew up!
It really brings to life the upbringing that Charles had - the dynamics of his family and the areas they lived in - and used letters and diaries from the family so well to bring them to life, so to speak! We get a real insight into the goings on at the time, and the role that those around him had on his interest being piqued on all matters to do with animals and the environment they were living in, and what could be learned.
Alongside his story, we see into the life of the author as she brings up her children to be just as interested in wildlife, encouraging them to explore with her on walks in the local area. She becomes obsessed with learning all she can about him and the use of letters from his sisters was a great way of seeing how they kept him in touch with matters from home while he was off travelling. Having lost his mother at a young age, it seemed his siblings became even closer, especially with his father being so busy.
It also touches on the ongoing work to preserve his legacy and keep sharing his work with people in the area, and how a humble garden can continue to teach us about the past and how we can imagine the area being used by those who lived there and what impact they have on shaping a young mind, such as Darwins', and how they continue to do so.
I learnt so much from this book and loved the use of diagrams, photos and drawings to illustrate and get a real feel of the area, especially for those who haven't been to visit!
I found this to be a refreshing and illuminating memoir, combining the fascinating life of Charles Darwin and his family alongside that of the author who finds herself living nearby to his childhood garden at The Mount in Shrewsbury. She'd often walk past the property and the land that is now run partly by The Shropshire Wildlife Trust and she becomes intrigued by the impact that the garden may have had on his outlook and interest into the natural world that he took on to bigger things as he grew up!
It really brings to life the upbringing that Charles had - the dynamics of his family and the areas they lived in - and used letters and diaries from the family so well to bring them to life, so to speak! We get a real insight into the goings on at the time, and the role that those around him had on his interest being piqued on all matters to do with animals and the environment they were living in, and what could be learned.
Alongside his story, we see into the life of the author as she brings up her children to be just as interested in wildlife, encouraging them to explore with her on walks in the local area. She becomes obsessed with learning all she can about him and the use of letters from his sisters was a great way of seeing how they kept him in touch with matters from home while he was off travelling. Having lost his mother at a young age, it seemed his siblings became even closer, especially with his father being so busy.
It also touches on the ongoing work to preserve his legacy and keep sharing his work with people in the area, and how a humble garden can continue to teach us about the past and how we can imagine the area being used by those who lived there and what impact they have on shaping a young mind, such as Darwins', and how they continue to do so.
I learnt so much from this book and loved the use of diagrams, photos and drawings to illustrate and get a real feel of the area, especially for those who haven't been to visit!
August 22, 2024
I received a free copy of this book through LibraryThing in exchange for a review.
Piesse has written a wonderful, meandering exploration of the Darwin family, their childhood garden in Shrewsbury, her own journey into motherhood as an academic, garden labour and the people who do it, and the importance of place and the living world as we all face the crisis of global heating.
My family and I briefly visited Shrewsbury from the US in Oct 2016 so it was interesting to think of the author possibly being in the town and writing the book while we were there.
It was very strange to be reading two nonfiction books at the same time (this one and Desert Solitaire by Ed Abbey) that include people killing rabbits by throwing stones.
Piesse has written a wonderful, meandering exploration of the Darwin family, their childhood garden in Shrewsbury, her own journey into motherhood as an academic, garden labour and the people who do it, and the importance of place and the living world as we all face the crisis of global heating.
My family and I briefly visited Shrewsbury from the US in Oct 2016 so it was interesting to think of the author possibly being in the town and writing the book while we were there.
It was very strange to be reading two nonfiction books at the same time (this one and Desert Solitaire by Ed Abbey) that include people killing rabbits by throwing stones.
December 3, 2022
This was well researched and well written but I think you have to be a big fan of Darwin to fully appreciate this one. There is extensive discussion of his family history and Darwin's childhood. This is randomly interlaced with the author's discussion of her own family (having kids, moving round the country, getting different jobs etc). It works to a point but as I say; only if you're realllllllly interested in Darwin and the very small pockets of Shropshire that the author mentions would it be a truly great read.
December 5, 2024
lowkey reads like ncea unfamiliar text
November 29, 2022
An unusual mixture of some historical facts, a lot of imaginary incidents from the past, and the author's personal life. Unfortunately I found the imagined bits annoying, and the author's life uninteresting. It wasn't the book I thought it might be, although it is probably enjoyable enough if you approach it without expectations.
to-buy
May 8, 2021Reviewed in FT weekend
Read
September 14, 2021A fascinating and very personal book in which Darwin’s relationship to his family’s garden reflects directly on his visionary understanding of the natural world in its entirety. A delight!
Julia Blackburn, author of Thin Paths
What is special about The Ghost in the Garden is the combination of research with an empathetic imagination that enables Piesse to show how much Darwin was influenced by the seven-acre estate over which he had roamed as a boy … Piesse is a conscientious reporter.
Miranda Seymour, Financial Times
Skillfully blending memoir and biography … the result is an original take on a giant of science.
Publishers Weekly
Jude Piesse’s beautiful piece of detective work, The Ghost in the Garden,i>, uncovers and brings to life the place that inspired the curiosity and spirit of enquiry of the boy and man who would become probably the most influential thinker and scientist in history: Charles Darwin. What makes this book so emotionally beguiling is the way the tale unfolds of an ordinary, yet handsome provincial house with a garden — and that was all it took. It moved me because inside Piesse’s book she could be describing every boy and girl free to roam and encouraged to explore, and you can feel the melancholy ghost of your own lost youth and heartbreak for those millions without the good fortune to have that freedom. It is a small story with a huge overtone that will stay with you long after the last page is turned.
Sir Tim Smit, Executive Vice Chair & Co-Founder of the Eden Project
There are two ghosts in the garden here: the young Charles aboard the Beagle, writing salt-stained letters to his sisters, and the figure of Jude Piesse herself, author of this tender and unexpected memoir. Slightly at sea herself in a new job, at one point marooned in her new office by flood water, she gives a vivid picture of the obsessiveness of research: the hallucinogenic quality of the trees as she paces the overgrown garden, the feel of the manuscripts as she pores over the sisters’ letters in nine-hour stints in the library, a young woman navigating a course through early motherhood and the world of academe.
Katherine Swift, author of The Morville Hours
The Ghost in the Garden is intelligent, curious, and moving nonfiction. It brings together biography, history, horticulture, and memoir — and does so with style and poignancy. Like the finest gardeners, Jude Piesse has laboured to give us something beautiful but also challenging; something that offers comforts without letting us get too comfortable with ourselves.
Damon Young, author of Philosophy in the Garden
Jude Piesse’s The Ghost in the Garden is a fascinating, beautifully written blend of biography, memoir, nature-writing, psychogeography, and history of science. Piesse shows us the human, quotidian world of the Darwin clan through the story of her discovery of their places and their stories, and the way they helped to seed Charles Darwin’s world-changing discoveries. In doing so, Piesse beautifully evokes what it is to be obsessed with a place, even when it no longer, quite, exists.
Emma Darwin
Absorbing … Unexpected, fresh, and revealing … a joy.
Helen Bynum, Literary Review
Well written and well researched.
Saga Magazine
Julia Blackburn, author of Thin Paths
What is special about The Ghost in the Garden is the combination of research with an empathetic imagination that enables Piesse to show how much Darwin was influenced by the seven-acre estate over which he had roamed as a boy … Piesse is a conscientious reporter.
Miranda Seymour, Financial Times
Skillfully blending memoir and biography … the result is an original take on a giant of science.
Publishers Weekly
Jude Piesse’s beautiful piece of detective work, The Ghost in the Garden,i>, uncovers and brings to life the place that inspired the curiosity and spirit of enquiry of the boy and man who would become probably the most influential thinker and scientist in history: Charles Darwin. What makes this book so emotionally beguiling is the way the tale unfolds of an ordinary, yet handsome provincial house with a garden — and that was all it took. It moved me because inside Piesse’s book she could be describing every boy and girl free to roam and encouraged to explore, and you can feel the melancholy ghost of your own lost youth and heartbreak for those millions without the good fortune to have that freedom. It is a small story with a huge overtone that will stay with you long after the last page is turned.
Sir Tim Smit, Executive Vice Chair & Co-Founder of the Eden Project
There are two ghosts in the garden here: the young Charles aboard the Beagle, writing salt-stained letters to his sisters, and the figure of Jude Piesse herself, author of this tender and unexpected memoir. Slightly at sea herself in a new job, at one point marooned in her new office by flood water, she gives a vivid picture of the obsessiveness of research: the hallucinogenic quality of the trees as she paces the overgrown garden, the feel of the manuscripts as she pores over the sisters’ letters in nine-hour stints in the library, a young woman navigating a course through early motherhood and the world of academe.
Katherine Swift, author of The Morville Hours
The Ghost in the Garden is intelligent, curious, and moving nonfiction. It brings together biography, history, horticulture, and memoir — and does so with style and poignancy. Like the finest gardeners, Jude Piesse has laboured to give us something beautiful but also challenging; something that offers comforts without letting us get too comfortable with ourselves.
Damon Young, author of Philosophy in the Garden
Jude Piesse’s The Ghost in the Garden is a fascinating, beautifully written blend of biography, memoir, nature-writing, psychogeography, and history of science. Piesse shows us the human, quotidian world of the Darwin clan through the story of her discovery of their places and their stories, and the way they helped to seed Charles Darwin’s world-changing discoveries. In doing so, Piesse beautifully evokes what it is to be obsessed with a place, even when it no longer, quite, exists.
Emma Darwin
Absorbing … Unexpected, fresh, and revealing … a joy.
Helen Bynum, Literary Review
Well written and well researched.
Saga Magazine
September 20, 2021
From the start this book reads like a lovely old fashioned Victorian ladies garden diary. As I turned the pages I expected dried flowers to fall out. The flowers that are peppered throughout the book, nasturtiums, holly hocks, fox gloves, sun flowers.
Jude’s writing is evocative and her research is incredible. Not only are there all the anecdotes about Charles Darwin and his family such as the unusual incident of the hare and the marble, Jude has also her own story running parallel to his.
As the evolution of the garden is unearthed, we read about Jude’s life unfolding with the arrival of her two girls and the beginning of her new career. Added to this is global warming, extinction of species such as the humble bees and how that concerned Darwin 200 years ago.
Yes inevitably the ghost of Darwin haunts both the garden and every page of the book, but there are other ghosts too. That of his mother Susannah his mother. The mother he barely could remember, but seemed always to be with him, influencing him, propelling him on his journey through life.
But Jude also has a lovely dark imagination and there are images that reflect this. She writes, “I picture pigeons eating corn and women eating doves. I see a chain of flesh and feathers lining all the terraced bank: chewing, crawling, flying and spitting bones and husks.” But it echoes Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory.
Jude has not only put colour to the Darwin family she has also updated his work and theories for the 21st Century. Confirming and reminding us of our own inevitable demise.
I love the “spider man” Simon talking about how humans fear of spiders and how this detachment of humans from nature has contributed to our current environmental crises and lamenting wildlife populations.
Darwin writes, “I have very little doubt that is the whole genus of humble bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heart ease and red clover would become very rare or whole disappear.”
And now here we are all buying lavender and embarking on save the bumble bees, perhaps too late.
David Attenborough echoed this in 2005, “If we were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if they (invertebrates) were to disappear, the land’s ecosystems would collapse.”
It’s a fabulous thought provoking read
Jude’s writing is evocative and her research is incredible. Not only are there all the anecdotes about Charles Darwin and his family such as the unusual incident of the hare and the marble, Jude has also her own story running parallel to his.
As the evolution of the garden is unearthed, we read about Jude’s life unfolding with the arrival of her two girls and the beginning of her new career. Added to this is global warming, extinction of species such as the humble bees and how that concerned Darwin 200 years ago.
Yes inevitably the ghost of Darwin haunts both the garden and every page of the book, but there are other ghosts too. That of his mother Susannah his mother. The mother he barely could remember, but seemed always to be with him, influencing him, propelling him on his journey through life.
But Jude also has a lovely dark imagination and there are images that reflect this. She writes, “I picture pigeons eating corn and women eating doves. I see a chain of flesh and feathers lining all the terraced bank: chewing, crawling, flying and spitting bones and husks.” But it echoes Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory.
Jude has not only put colour to the Darwin family she has also updated his work and theories for the 21st Century. Confirming and reminding us of our own inevitable demise.
I love the “spider man” Simon talking about how humans fear of spiders and how this detachment of humans from nature has contributed to our current environmental crises and lamenting wildlife populations.
Darwin writes, “I have very little doubt that is the whole genus of humble bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heart ease and red clover would become very rare or whole disappear.”
And now here we are all buying lavender and embarking on save the bumble bees, perhaps too late.
David Attenborough echoed this in 2005, “If we were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if they (invertebrates) were to disappear, the land’s ecosystems would collapse.”
It’s a fabulous thought provoking read
February 13, 2022
This is a quite unusual book. I had to wait a few months after having ordered it in a state of excitement, as the topic sounded very intriguing. As I progressed through Chapter One I felt a sinking feeling of disappointment. It seemed a bit all over the place, and Jude Piesse seemed to be clutching at straws to find material in the remnants of Darwin's childhood home that had influenced his thought.
In many ways it is more about her, her daughters and her sister, and Jude's reactions to the Shrewsbury landscape and townscape, then Darwin himself. In the end I found it well worth completing, partly because at her best Jude writes very poetically, and because of the way she draws together current concerns about the future of the Earth with Darwin's writings and writes about the importance of gardens as positive sites of interactions between humans and the natural world that might spare us from sinking into despair and help save the world in the process. 'The newer ecological visions that were first glimpsed within [The Mount's] borders ... the child's eye sense of wonder in nature that Darwin experienced as a boy and with a forgotten aspect of evolutionary history ...
In many ways it is more about her, her daughters and her sister, and Jude's reactions to the Shrewsbury landscape and townscape, then Darwin himself. In the end I found it well worth completing, partly because at her best Jude writes very poetically, and because of the way she draws together current concerns about the future of the Earth with Darwin's writings and writes about the importance of gardens as positive sites of interactions between humans and the natural world that might spare us from sinking into despair and help save the world in the process. 'The newer ecological visions that were first glimpsed within [The Mount's] borders ... the child's eye sense of wonder in nature that Darwin experienced as a boy and with a forgotten aspect of evolutionary history ...
June 12, 2023
I found this book over-academic, rambling and long-winded. Parts of it feel like a botany text-book, parts of it like an academic treatise. There are a few brief moments of human interest, when the author tells us about her young daughters, or how she's going about her research, but they're scattered here and there rather than in one introductory or concluding chapter.
Perhaps for someone with a good visual imagination it might be easier to read, but I found the descriptions rather tedious and the botanical detail entirely uninteresting. I appreciated a few details about the young Charles Darwin and his sisters but their characters didn't really develop and it was all told factually rather than as a story.
I struggled to finish the book, skimming not just paragraphs but some entire sections - however, it's clearly very well-researched. Others have found it inspiring, and most reviews are positive, so don't necessarily take my word for it. I wouldn't personally recommend it, however.
Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
Perhaps for someone with a good visual imagination it might be easier to read, but I found the descriptions rather tedious and the botanical detail entirely uninteresting. I appreciated a few details about the young Charles Darwin and his sisters but their characters didn't really develop and it was all told factually rather than as a story.
I struggled to finish the book, skimming not just paragraphs but some entire sections - however, it's clearly very well-researched. Others have found it inspiring, and most reviews are positive, so don't necessarily take my word for it. I wouldn't personally recommend it, however.
Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
May 31, 2021
This story provides an interesting take on the influence of a garden on the development of Darwin’s ideas/ theories. I was particularly interested having grown up in Shrewsbury, my brother having lived in Hermitage walk and my mum just round the corner. The walks and views described by Jude are familiar to me and the history she has investigated and detailed is the highlight of this book for me. I’m not sure whether readers with no connection to the place will be as gripped. A detailed map of the area would help. I thought I knew a lot about Shrewsbury’s history so appreciated new info on the impact of the Enclosure Act on the poor people of the town, details of the lives of the Darwin women and “invisible” gardeners and a Marxist analysis of Darwin senior’s business activities.
I would recommend the book to my family but I think it would be a hard read for anyone with no connection to the place.
I would recommend the book to my family but I think it would be a hard read for anyone with no connection to the place.
July 25, 2022
I struggled with this because of the small font in the paperback edition that I read but also found it rather hard going. Not a great mix of the personal and historical.
March 13, 2021
I knew little of Charles Darwin and his work prior to reading The Ghost in the Garden and thought the premise of this book would bring an interesting insight into his life, separate to the more typical ‘dry’ biographies available.
The Ghost in the Garden beautifully blends investigation into Darwin, his life at The Mount and his research, with the authors own experiences of living in the area, raising her two children and her journey to learn more about Darwin’s family and associates.
The book includes excerpts from letters between Darwin and his sisters, bringing him to life as both boy and man, and showing how The Mount and particularly the garden helped to shape his later research for Origin.
I really liked that, although Charles is ‘the famous one’ in the family, the author chose to focus equal attention on his sisters, his mother and the staff at the property who all helped to build the garden and to assist in his research.
This isn’t your average historical research piece, instead merging investigation with fictional elements and the author’s musings to bring so much more life to the people of the past.
‘Why not a book on Darwin written from the garden up?’. The previously untold stories make this a gem of a book and also deliver some hard messages on the environmental issues our communities face today.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Ghost in the Garden beautifully blends investigation into Darwin, his life at The Mount and his research, with the authors own experiences of living in the area, raising her two children and her journey to learn more about Darwin’s family and associates.
The book includes excerpts from letters between Darwin and his sisters, bringing him to life as both boy and man, and showing how The Mount and particularly the garden helped to shape his later research for Origin.
I really liked that, although Charles is ‘the famous one’ in the family, the author chose to focus equal attention on his sisters, his mother and the staff at the property who all helped to build the garden and to assist in his research.
This isn’t your average historical research piece, instead merging investigation with fictional elements and the author’s musings to bring so much more life to the people of the past.
‘Why not a book on Darwin written from the garden up?’. The previously untold stories make this a gem of a book and also deliver some hard messages on the environmental issues our communities face today.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews