Morville Hours: The Story of a Garden
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An exquisitely written book about one particular English garden—and about the arc of life. Nobody writes about gardens like the English. And few English writers have ever been as eloquent or astute as Katherine Swift. Some twenty years ago, she and her husband leased a house in the town of Shropshire with a garden that became her passion. Driven to uncover its history, she takes readers on a journey back through time, linking the stories of those who lived in the house and tended the same red soil with her family’s own saga. Spanning hundreds of years, The Morville Hours is also deeply personal—a journey through the seasons and also one of self-exploration, of finding one’s place in the world and putting down roots. With each chapter bringing to life an hour of the day or night—from the crunch of grass underfoot at midnight on a frosty New Year’s Eve to the bloom of blue-black damsons picked on a golden September afternoon—Swift pulls us into her world and, at the same time, expands and illuminates our own. For anyone with a passion for gardens and gardening, The Morville Hours will be unforgettable. Publishers Weekly Swift, a former London Times gardening columnist, invites readers to slow down, taste the fresh fruit and sniff the blooming flowers. Entwining gardening with natural and local history, family memories, garden visitors like insects, animals and people, and religious traditions, Swift explores the cycles of the seasons and life while providing a fresh breath of country air. Was quince responsible for the Trojan War as well as Adam and Eve's fall from Paradise? Garden tidbits, such as pear trees living for 250 years and damson plums having provided the dye for British military uniforms, are abundant. But more so, Swift offers an exploration of the world as seen through the eyes of a longtime gardener. The months in the garden are explored alongside the medieval Catholic book of hours; days and seasons cycle with Swift's narratives of garden design, Roman history, astronomy and brain chemistry. Swift's meditative prose should appeal to gardeners (armchair or soil-based) and nature lovers alike with its invitation to pause for reflection. (May)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Contents A Note about Books of Hours....................viiMaps....................xI Come to Morville....................1Vigils....................17Lauds....................49Prime....................87Terce....................129Sext....................167None....................207Vespers....................255Compline....................297Acknowledgements....................341Notes....................343Index....................351
