"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, but less well 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. 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. 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. Marta's particular interest is in authors and their gardens, the connection between the pen and the trowel. She is the 2019 winner of the Garden Club of America's Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement. Her books include Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life, All the Presidents' Gardens, World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life, and Unearthing the Secret Garden. Visit her at martamcdowell.com. "Offers an excuse (if one is necessary) to linger yet again over the observations of a poet who, as Dickinson herself proclaimed, 'was always attached to Mud'…wandering through this book, we can smell the hyacinth that bloomed on the poet's windowsill in winter, hear the thrum of hummingbird wings, smell the cooking odors from the kitchen and imagine Dickinson pruning, staking, digging - and listening and watching." -The New York Times Book Review "Emily Dickinson's garden might not get as much love in Dickinson as it did in real life, but that's all the more reason to read this book." -Bustle "Dickinson admirers will find much that is new and affirming here, while this will also delight all who love plants and readers who enjoy unusual approaches to biography." -Booklist "A must-have keepsake for Dickinson fans." -Literary Ladies Guide "Delightful…Part biography, part poetry, and a whole lot of gardening inspiration." -Pages and Cup "In these pages, you are beside Emily Dickinson's elbow-feeling the dense heat of summer, noting the gay attire of the scarlet runner beans, learning the skills of an ultra-observant plantswoman, finding the poetry in nature." -Tovah Martin, horticulturist, lecturer, and author of The Garden in Every Sense and Season "Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life evokes the vibrant, vanishing world of the poet's nineteenth century and reminds us of our still more charged responsibilities as twenty-first-century gardeners." -Marta Werner, professor of English, Loyola University, Chicago "This engaging book imagines our great poet's days among her plants and flowers." -Judith Farr, author of The Gardens of Emily Dickinson "A visual treat as well as a literary one… 'Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life' will be deeply satisfying for gardeners and ga

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