Cornflower Blues 2013 - the books of the year, part 2

   

    While most of the 'Cornflower Blues' are over on the books site, there's one book of the year for which this is the more appropriate home, and that is Virginia Woolf's Garden: The Story of the Garden at Monk's House by Caroline Zoob with photography by Caroline Arber.

 

    As beautiful and useful - for it contains planting plans - as it is fascinating, it's a perceptive account of the creation of the Woolfs' garden at Rodmell in Sussex and of its importance as both sanctuary and source of inspiration to Virginia, and for Leonard, the driving-force behind the making and tending of the "enchanted domain" (as his nephew Cecil describes it in his Foreword), a place of absorption and retreat.

 

    The book draws extensively on Virginia's letters and diaries, but also on its author's intimate knowledge of the place, for as tenants of the National Trust, Caroline Zoob and her husband lived at Monk's House for more than a decade, and they looked after the garden, developing it with respect to the spirit in which it was created. Herself an embroiderer, Caroline has stitched plans of the garden's various rooms, and these complement archival photographs and Caroline Arber's atmospheric images of the garden in all seasons and at all times of the day.

 

    Leonard Woolf is quoted in the book's introduction:

'... what has the deepest and most permanent effect upon oneself and one's way of living is the house in which one lives. The house determines the day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute quality, colour, atmosphere, pace of one's life; it is the framework of what one does, of what one can do, and of one's relations with people.'

 

    Caroline Zoob's sensitive portrait of house, garden and occupants illustrates Leonard's point in fine fashion.

Comments

[pamela]

Extraordinary book. I received it for Christmas and am enchanted. Having had the good fortune to have actually been at Monk's House on a beautiful day in May of this year, it's a delight to see so many lovely photographs that look identical to my visit.

[Nan]

I must look into this. It looks just wonderful.

[Kim Williams]

It's been my constant companion through the lull! Those worn steps as seen from the kitchen with the morning sun streaming down, heavenly. Such a beautiful book

[Kim Williams]

And aren't those embroideries at the start of some chapters lovely:)

[elaine]

When I read your original post about this book I knew I had to have it. Father Christmas was very kind and put it in my stocking. It is a true delight and will inspire my gardening throughout the coming year. Sending you my best wishes for 2014.

[Cornflower]

Lovely to see you're all fans of the book, and as Kim says, those embroideries are a delightful and unusual element.