My Summer in a Garden

My Summer in a GardenOft quoted but seldom credited, Charles Dudley Warner's My Summer in a Garden is a classic of American garden writing and was a seminal early work in the then fledgling genre of American nature writing. Warner prominent in his day as a writer and newspaper editor was a dedicated amateur gardener who shared with Mark Twain, his close friend and neighbor, a sense of humor that remains deliciously fresh today. In monthly dispatches, Warner chronicles his

Oft quoted but seldom credited, Charles Dudley Warner's My Summer in a Garden is a classic of American garden writing and was a seminal early work in the then fledgling genre of American nature writing. Warner--prominent in his day as a writer and newspaper editor--was a dedicated amateur gardener who shared with Mark Twain, his close friend and neighbor, a sense of humor that remains deliciously fresh today.

In monthly dispatches, Warner chronicles his travails in the garden, where he and his cat, Calvin, seek to ward off a stream of interlopers, from the neighbors' huge-hoofed cows and thieving children, to the reviled, though "propagatious," pusley weed. To read Warner is to join him on his rounds of his beloved vegetable patch, to feel the sun on his sore back, the hoe in his blistered hands, and yet, like him, never to lose sight of "the philosophical implications of contact with the earth, and companionship with gently growing things."

This Modern Library edition is published with an extensive new Introduction by Allan Gurganus, author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and The Practical Heart.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Modern Library
Published: 02/19/2002
ISBN: 9780375759468
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.44lbs
Size: 8.56h x 5.49w x 0.38d

Review Citations: Library Journal 12/01/2001 pg. 182
New York Times 06/02/2002 pg. 31
New York Review of Books 08/15/2002 pg. 17