VIRGINIA WOOLF'S GARDEN

'Leonard and I have brought a field...and we are making all sorts of ambitious schemes for terraces, gazebos, ponds, waterlilies, fountains, carp, goldfish, statues of naked ladies and figureheads of battleships reflected in shadowy lakes.' Monk's House in Sussex is the former home of Leonard and Virginia Woolf which they bought in 1919 as a country retreat. Monk's House was somewhere they came to read, write and work in the garden. From the overgrown land behind the house they created a brilliant patchwork of garden rooms, linked by brick paths, secluded by flint walls and yew hedges. The story of this magical garden in the subject of this extraordinary large illustrated book. The author has selected quotations from the writings of the Woolfs which reveal how important the garden was in their lives as a source of pleasure and inspiration. Virginia wrote most of her major novels at Monk's House at first in a converted tool shed, and later in her purpose-built wooden writing lodge tucked into a corner of the orchard. Caroline Zoob and her husband have for over a decade been tenants of the National Trust at the property and have an intimate knowledge of the garden they tended and planted. The photographer Caroline Arber was a frequent visitor to the house during their tenancy, and her spectacular photographs, published here for the first time, reveal the garden as never seen by the public - at dawn, in the depths of winter, at dusk. The text and photos are enriched with rare archive images and embroidered garden plans. We are taken through the various 'rooms' including the Italian Garden, the Fishpond Garden, the Millstone Terrace and the Walled Garden, Virginia's Bedroom Garden, the Flower Wall, the Writing Lodge and all the various paths, the orchard and the fig tree garden. Not forgetting the vegetable garden, the rear lawn garden and conservatory. Here are flourishing Annabelle Hydrangea, vines and roses, secularly colourful dahlias in all varieties and colours and textures and the Woolfs couple at play with their dog, eating and drinking and admiring their beautiful planting, scents and smells and lines. 'We are safe in our garden, and it's the most I can do to get Leonard to leave it.' Drawing on the letters of the literary couple, here is a beautiful story of their garden which is tended just as lovingly today. Spectacular colour photographs throughout plus garden plans and colour artworks. 192pp, 24.8 x 30.3cm.