100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Overnight NZ-wide delivery on in-stock orders 🚀

Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life

The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet
4.21 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 620 ratings, 121 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Marta McDowell's Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life explores the poet's deep connection with gardening and how it influenced her writings. The book intertwines biographical details with descriptions of the plants and flowers Dickinson cherished. Through a blend of garden history and poetry extracts, readers gain insight into the natural world that played a pivotal role in Dickinson's artistic expression.
Read More
Format: Hardback
$6000
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you're fascinated by how the natural world influenced one of America's greatest poets. It offers insight into the literary and horticultural passions that shaped her life and work and includes charming illustrations and historical context for garden enthusiasts.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

From New York Times bestselling author Marta McDowell, an illustrated exploration of how gardening and plants inspired Emily Dickinson, one of the most beloved poets of all time.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life is a visual treat as well as a literary one for gardeners and garden lovers, connoisseurs of botanical illustration, and those who seek a deeper understanding of the life and work of Emily Dickinson. – The Wall Street Journal

Emily Dickinson was a keen observer of the natural world. Lesser known is the fact that she was also an avid gardener, sending fresh bouquets to friends, including pressed flowers in her letters, and studying botany at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke. At her family home, she tended both a small glass conservatory and a flower garden.

In Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, award-winning author Marta McDowell explores Dickinson’s deep passion for plants and how it inspired and informed her writing. Tracing a year in the garden, the book reveals details few know about Dickinson and adds to our collective understanding of who she was as a person.

By weaving together Dickinson’s poems, excerpts from letters, contemporary and historical photography, and botanical art, McDowell offers an enchanting new perspective on one of America’s most celebrated but enigmatic literary figures.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life by Marta McDowell has been praised for its enchanting blend of biography, poetry, and gardening inspiration. Reviews highlight how the book immerses readers in the sensory experience of Dickinson's garden while offering new insights into her life and work. It's described as a visually and literarily satisfying tribute that appeals to both gardening enthusiasts and fans of Dickinson, creating a vivid portrayal of her intricate relationship with nature.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781604698220

Publisher: Workman Publishing

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 01 October 2019

Country: United States

Imprint: Timber Press

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 28.0mm

Width: 176.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 811g

Pages: 268

About the Author

Marta McDowell lives, gardens, and writes in Chatham, New Jersey. She consults for public gardens and private clients, writes and lectures on gardening topics, and teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, where she studied landscape design. Her particular interest is in authors and their gardens, the connection between the pen and the trowel.

Also by Marta McDowell

View all
  • The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder
    If you loved Wilder’s books, or if you garden with a child who loves her books, you will enjoy the read. San Francisco Chronicle In this revealing exploration of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s deep connection with the natural world, Marta McDowell follows the wagon trail of the beloved Little House series. You’ll learn details about Wilder’s life and inspirations, pinpoint the...
    Hardback
    $6000
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life
    A New York Times Bestseller There aren't many books more beloved than The Tale of Peter Rabbit and even fewer authors as iconic as Beatrix Potter. Her characters—Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck, and all the rest—exist in a charmed world filled with flowers and gardens. In Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life, bestselling author Marta McDowell explores the origins of Beatrix Potter's...
    Hardback
    $6000
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Gardening Can Be Murder
    With their deadly plants, razor-sharp shears, shady corners, and ready-made burial sites, gardens make an ideal scene for the perfect murder. But the outsize influence that gardens and gardening have had on the mystery genre has been underappreciated. Now, Marta McDowell, a writer and gardener with a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of the genre, illuminates the many ways in which our greatest...
    Hardback
    $6000
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Unearthing The Secret Garden
    Affectionate and informative, Unearthing the Secret Garden is not unlike a garden itself, with its smooth lawns of prose and striking shows of illustration and photography. The Wall Street Journal New York Times bestselling author Marta McDowell has revealed the way that plants have stirred some of our most cherished authors, including Beatrix Potter, Emily Dickinson, and Laura Ingalls Wilder....
    Hardback
    $4999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

More from Biography & Memoir

View all
  • This Angry Pen of Mine
    This Angry Pen of Mine by Layne Staley invites you to dive into the untold creative world of Layne Staley, the legendary voice behind Alice in Chains. This extraordinary collection showcases his handwritten lyrics, deeply personal poetry, stunning original artwork, rare photos, fan tributes, and so much more. Step into the world of Layne Staley like never before. For the...
    Hardback
    $7299
    Elsewhere:
    $8999
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Famesick
    Chronicling the tumultuous decade between the premiere of Girls to her 2021 shotgun wedding (minus the baby, because she has no uterus), Lena Dunham takes us through her journey with her trademark mix of humor, unsparing honesty, and keen eye for detail. We peek behind the scenes - of her work, her family, her relationships, and her battle to reclaim her body...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3500
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Dogs, Boys and Other Things I've Cried About
    From the social media superstar behind @SimonSits, Isabel Klee--known for her heartwarming tales of dog rescue--comes an utterly winning memoir about a twentysomething woman's search for true love in New York City and the dogs who helped her find it. A Jersey girl by birth, Isabel Klee had always wanted to live in New York City. At age 20, she...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Signed Copy
    New Release
    Stakes
    Read our interview with author Noelle McCarthy! A darkly funny, sparkling follow-up to the author’s bestselling memoir Grand. You have to invite him in. You have to want the vampire’s badness in the house with you. Growing up in Catholic Ireland, Noelle McCarthy is captivated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The vampire is a risk-free fantasy, a suave alternative to the fraught realities...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Built for This
    Raised among strong women, butcher's benches, and hard ideas about what men are meant to be, Brad Poulter grows up knowing he's different long before he has the words for it. But in late '90s small-town New Zealand, 'different' isn't discussed, it's managed. Joining the Royal New Zealand Navy offers escape, certainty, and belonging. The rules are clear, the uniform...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Even the Good Girls Will Cry
    Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a fan letter to a P.O. box, Melissa Auf der Maur's first band scored an opening slot for the Smashing Pumpkins in her bohemian home town, Montreal. Sensing Melissa's talent, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love. Whisked from her local scene, Melissa joined Hole just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    An Ocean and a Day
    An utterly riveting, moving and poignant memoir of grief and loss that will speak to anyone who's ever lost someone they love. An Ocean and a Day is Hannah Richell's personal account of losing her husband, Matt, in a surfing accident on Tamarama beach in 2014. It is the story of the grief journey she travelled over the first two...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    A Place to Stand
    A Place to Stand by Clare Ward is a profound memoir that delves into the life of a country doctor living and working in the Hokianga Harbour area in the far north of Aotearoa New Zealand. This region is sparsely populated and poses numerous health challenges. This thoughtful account details Clare’s thirty-year career, highlighting the people she works with and...
    Hardback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Rory
    The New York Times bestseller The #1 Irish Times bestseller The definitive biography of Rory McIlroy, the most important, popular and confounding player of the post-Tiger era. Rory McIlroy contains multitudes. The child of a working-class family from a small town in a war-torn homeland now commutes to work in his own private jet and counts billionaires as confidants. He can overwhelm a golf...
    Paperback
    $3699
    Elsewhere:
    $4199
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer
    Novelist, memoirist and playwright Witi Ihimaera – author of Pounamu, Pounamu and The Whale Rider – decided, at the age of eighty, to dive back into the water and spend a year full-time at Te Wānanga Takiura, immersing himself in his own language, in te reo Māori. This book tells the story of this kaikaukau, this swimmer, and his year...
    Paperback
    $3500
    Elsewhere:
    $4500
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    This Is Me: A Reckoning
    This is a searingly honest and moving memoir from double Golden Globe-nominatedactress Hayden Panettiere. Hayden Panettiere has been in front of the camera since before she could talk. She roseto stardom typecasted as Hollywood's blonde girl next door. As a young celebrity,naysayers were certain she would crash and burn. Not one to disappoint, she did.Hayden Panettiere's irreverent memoir satisfies our...
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Beyond Life and Death
    From martial arts icon and global film star Jet Li comes a revelatory, profound and inspiring guide to self-mastery and spiritual wisdom, distilled into 10 essential life lessons. Martial arts legend and international movie star Jet Li distils 10 powerful insights from his iconic career, his personal life and philosophies, and his 30-year Buddhist practice. Jet Li's story defies legend....
    By Jet Li
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.