The History Of Modern Taste In Gardening

Horace Walpole

Editions

Review

Horace Walople's delightful essay on garden design remains, even today, one of the most famous, influential and important pieces of writing in gardening literature.

First published in 1780 from his own Strawberry Hill Press, he proudly claims the "natural" landscape style as an unequivocally English invention and will brook no contenders as he champions the work of William Kent and "Capability" Brown.

John Dixon Hunt has provided an excellent introduction which places the work in the context of Whiggish propaganda, linking the "natural" style with British liberty.

That Walpole's essay remains valid and vivid is thanks to his writing style and to his talent for memorable phrases, as in his put-down of French gardening as "going up and down stairs in the open air".

Delicious. - review by Stewart Grimshaw