Details

Title

The Four Gardens

Author

Buchanan, Emily [Handasyde]

Place of Publication

Philadelphia

Publisher

Lippencott

Copyright Date

1905 Show more1905-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
1905-01-01T00:00:00.000Z Show less

Date of Publication

1905 Show more1905-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
1905-01-01T00:00:00.000Z Show less
1912 Show more1912-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
1912-01-01T00:00:00.000Z Show less

Collection

Scans used courtesy of HathiTrust from University of California Berkeley Library. The four gardens / by Handasyde [i.e. E.H. Buchanan], SB455 .B85 1924, Environmental Design Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Note

Montgomery was gifted an early version of this book by her pen pal George Macmillan in 1905. Research shows that this story collection was first published by a small press in the UK sometime in 1905. It was then picked up by the larger presses that published it in the US and UK in 1912 (thanks to Mary Beth Cavert for research assistance). The book includes four separate garden stories with interspersed line drawings and full-page illustrations. Montgomery told Macmillan “I don’t know when I’ve read anything that pleased me as that book did. It is simply idyllic and I’ve already read it over four times. It has caught the very spirit of a garden and seemed to lead me into an enchanted world … Many many thanks for your gift and the thoughtfulness expressed in it” (unpublished portion of her letter from 19 March 1906). Emily Handasyde Buchanan was a Scottish writer who also published a book about Sir Walter Scott and another book of country sketches called "A Girl's Life in A Hunting Country" (1903). "The Four Gardens" includes the stories "The Haunted Garden," "The Old Fashioned Garden," 'The Poor Man’s Garden," and "The Rich Man’s Garden." A review from the "Spectator" magazine in 1912 noted that "There is a wholesome fragrance about these garden sketches that is very pleasant. Each of the four has a character of its own, but each leads us naturally to the next, as do the colours in a well-planned garden. The first of them, called a 'Haunted Garden,' tells of a ghost, one of whose manifestations is new, at any rate to the present writer. ... The story is so convincingly told that one would like to hear if the ghost's feet left any impression on newly fallen snow. ... A sad little love story and flower folk-names are intertwined in the 'Old-Fashioned Garden,' Scotland and England are contrasted in the 'Poor Man's Garden,' while the fourth chapter tells of a worried millionaire whose kindness of heart will not allow him to keep bores out of his garden."

Genre

short story