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Garden Stories
A gorgeously jacketed hardcover anthology of short stories from around the world that celebrate gardens and gardeners
Gardens have been fruitful settings for stories ever since Adam and Eve were ejected from Paradise. This delightfully wide-ranging collection brings together all sorts of tales of the tilled earth, featuring secret gardens, enchanted gardens, gardens public and private, grand and humble.
Spectacular gardens are viewed from the perspective of a snail in Virginia Woolf’s “Kew Gardens” and from that of a sheltered teenage girl in Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden-Party.” The family in Doris Lessing’s “Flavours of Exile” hauls succulent vegetables and fruits from the rich African soil, and Colette in “Bygone Spring” luxuriates in extravagantly blooming flowers. Children discover their own peculiar paradises in Sandra Cisneros’s “The Monkey Garden” and Italo Calvino’s “The Enchanted Garden,” while adult gardeners find things that move and haunt them in William Maxwell’s “The French Scarecrow” and Jamaica Kincaid's "The Garden I Have in Mind."
Gardens of the imagination round out the the beautiful but fatal garden of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” the crystal buds of J. G. Ballard’s “The Garden of Time,” ravenous orchids in John Collier’s “Green Thoughts,” and Matsudo Aoko’s “Planting,” in which a young woman plants each day whatever she has been given—roses and violets, buttons and broken cups, love and fear and sorrow. Garden Stories is an abundant crop of entrancing stories and the perfect gift for gardeners of all kinds.
Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
Gardens have been fruitful settings for stories ever since Adam and Eve were ejected from Paradise. This delightfully wide-ranging collection brings together all sorts of tales of the tilled earth, featuring secret gardens, enchanted gardens, gardens public and private, grand and humble.
Spectacular gardens are viewed from the perspective of a snail in Virginia Woolf’s “Kew Gardens” and from that of a sheltered teenage girl in Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden-Party.” The family in Doris Lessing’s “Flavours of Exile” hauls succulent vegetables and fruits from the rich African soil, and Colette in “Bygone Spring” luxuriates in extravagantly blooming flowers. Children discover their own peculiar paradises in Sandra Cisneros’s “The Monkey Garden” and Italo Calvino’s “The Enchanted Garden,” while adult gardeners find things that move and haunt them in William Maxwell’s “The French Scarecrow” and Jamaica Kincaid's "The Garden I Have in Mind."
Gardens of the imagination round out the the beautiful but fatal garden of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” the crystal buds of J. G. Ballard’s “The Garden of Time,” ravenous orchids in John Collier’s “Green Thoughts,” and Matsudo Aoko’s “Planting,” in which a young woman plants each day whatever she has been given—roses and violets, buttons and broken cups, love and fear and sorrow. Garden Stories is an abundant crop of entrancing stories and the perfect gift for gardeners of all kinds.
Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
400 pages, Hardcover
Published May 24, 2022
22 people are currently reading
223 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 8, 2024
Väldigt bra urval, utom "humor in the garden" vars noveller inte alls var i min smak.
June 19, 2022
Gardens are magical, and Good Writing is magical, and when you pair these two up you get this absolutely delightful collection.
New favourites, alongside old timers like Woolf and von Arnim:
- Doris Lessing’s “Flavours of Exile”
- the excerpt from Meir Shalev’s “My Wild Garden”
- Joan Aiken’s “The Serial Garden”
- John Collier’s “Green Thoughts”
- J. G. Ballard’s “The Garden of Time”
- Matsuda Aoko’s “Planting” - though not my first encounter with this story, still as haunting
"If I am not mistaken, the garden sometimes stands and barks at the forest, realizing that uncompromising nature is over there, a battle for survival is over there, and the real wild, too." (Meir Shalev)
New favourites, alongside old timers like Woolf and von Arnim:
- Doris Lessing’s “Flavours of Exile”
- the excerpt from Meir Shalev’s “My Wild Garden”
- Joan Aiken’s “The Serial Garden”
- John Collier’s “Green Thoughts”
- J. G. Ballard’s “The Garden of Time”
- Matsuda Aoko’s “Planting” - though not my first encounter with this story, still as haunting
"If I am not mistaken, the garden sometimes stands and barks at the forest, realizing that uncompromising nature is over there, a battle for survival is over there, and the real wild, too." (Meir Shalev)
December 15, 2024
Like most compilations, a mixed bag. Some were great though, The Garden Party Katherine Mansfield and The Serial Garden Joan Aiken I particularly enjoyed / have stuck with me. Excerpt from The Secret Garden FHB well placed, Colette's Bygone Spring intriguing, Planting Marauds Aoko quite a startling one to end on. Took a while over this one always trying to read in a garden / looking at gardens - bit whimsical but worthwhile.
December 31, 2023
I’m not overly fond of short stories but some lovely passages in this collection.
June 5, 2025
A lovely dip in and out garden read.
July 3, 2025
Avid Gardeners
The Garden I Have in Mind - Jamaica Kincaid ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Elizabeth and her German Garden- Elizabeth Von Arnim ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Flavours of Exile - Doris Lessing ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Walden - Henry David Thoreau ⭐⭐⭐
Up the Garden Path - L.P.Hartley ⭐
The French Scarecrow- William Maxwell ⭐⭐⭐
Gardens
Colette - Bygone Spring ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Virginia Woolf - Kew Gardens ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Katherine Mansfield - The Garden Party ⭐⭐⭐⭐
D. H. Lawrence - The Shadow in the Rose Garden ⭐⭐⭐
Willa Cather - My Antonia ⭐⭐⭐✨
Jane Gardam - Blue Poppies ⭐⭐⭐
Wild Gardens
Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sandra Cisneros - The Monkey Garden ⭐⭐
Daphne Du Maurier - Rebeca ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Ideal for Writer's Effects analysis on exams
Jean Stafford - The Lippia Lawn ⭐⭐⭐
Meir Shalev- A Night in the Garden ⭐⭐⭐
Humour in the Garden
The Occasional Garden - Saki ⭐⭐✨
W.W Jacobs- A Garden Plot DNF
O. Henry - Roses, Ruses and Romance ⭐⭐⭐✨
Joan Aiken - The Serial Garden ⭐⭐⭐⭐
John Collier - Green Thoughts ⭐⭐
Gardens of the Imagination
The Enchanted Garden - Italo Calvino ⭐⭐⭐
J.G. Ballard - The Garden of Time ⭐⭐⭐✨ (Also the 2024 Met Gala theme)
Matsuda Aoko - Planting ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Flowers I discovered: Hellebores, Meconopis betonicifolia (Himalayan poppies), Frangipani trees...
March 22, 2023
This anthology of stories is fantastic. There is a wide selection of authors, both classic and contemporary, and it is divided into sections - "Wild Gardens," "Humor in the Garden," and "Gardens of the Imagination," to name a few. I think most of the selections are short stories, but some are from larger works of fiction, such as Du Maurier's Rebecca and Cather's My Antonia.
What I enjoyed most about reading this is that I was able to discover authors I wasn't familiar with. I was immediately attracted to the selection from Elizabeth Von Arnim's Elizabeth and Her German Garden. I loved it so much I bought the book! I also discovered Joan Aiken's The Serial Garden, which made me feel very guilty over all the times I've cleaned my children's rooms and thrown things away I thought they didn't want. John Collier's "Green Thoughts" was horrifying, but also intriguing. It's not the type of story I would usually read, but it was fun to discover it here. I noticed that Everyman has published several topical anthologies such as this and I'm eager to read more from this series.
What I enjoyed most about reading this is that I was able to discover authors I wasn't familiar with. I was immediately attracted to the selection from Elizabeth Von Arnim's Elizabeth and Her German Garden. I loved it so much I bought the book! I also discovered Joan Aiken's The Serial Garden, which made me feel very guilty over all the times I've cleaned my children's rooms and thrown things away I thought they didn't want. John Collier's "Green Thoughts" was horrifying, but also intriguing. It's not the type of story I would usually read, but it was fun to discover it here. I noticed that Everyman has published several topical anthologies such as this and I'm eager to read more from this series.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews