cover image So Fine a Prospect

So Fine a Prospect

Alan Emmet. University Press of New England, $55 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-87451-749-1

Emmet may not be the most polished literary stylist in the garden-writing world, but her love for historic gardens and her relish for their attendant lore are so infectious that readers will forgive her occasional narrative stumblings. Reading this rambling, detail-packed work is rather like conversing with a feisty old gardener over the back fence: one gets as much local history and family scandal as solid information about when and how a garden was laid out and what plants grew in it. Here we learn that early orchid fancier Wright Boott of Boston, whose father had one of the city's first hothouses, became a mad recluse before shooting himself in 1845; that Celia Thaxter, renowned for her garden and salon on Appledore Island, off the coast of southern Maine, was probably nearsighted; and that Edith and Teddy Wharton took Henry James motoring through the Berkshires. Garden lovers will be inspired to visit the enthusiastically described properties that are still extant, as well as mourn those that remain only in images and words. Pictures not seen by PW. (Aug.)