Marta McDowell

"This lushly illustrated book from bestselling author Marta McDowell examines Laura Ingalls Wilder's relationship to the landscape and illuminates how it inspired the beloved Little House Books" --

"Plants, borders, and various horticultural paraphernalia make surprisingly frequent appearances in mystery plots. In this wide-ranging survey of classic and contemporary murder fiction, Marta looks at the detectives, motives, methods, opportunities, and writers that have used the garden as their point of departure. The result is a diverting and eye-opening study that deepens our appreciation of the great crime fiction writers while illuminating the...

McDowell delves into the professional and gardening life of Frances Hodgson Burnett, the writer who dominated the literary world of her time. A lover of flowers and gardens, Burnett's path to literary triumph was a long one. McDowell reminds us why Burnett's 1911 novel, The secret garden, continues to touch readers after more than a century.

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...

Celebrates the Du Pont family heritage of land stewardship and horticultural creativity Renowned as the first family of American horticulture, the du Ponts created magnificent landscapes and gardens that complement the verdant, rolling lands of the Brandywine Valley. Five of their estates - Hagley, Nemours, Mt. Cuba, Winterthur, and Longwood Gardens - are open to the public, each a showplace of formal plantings juxtaposed with carefully nurtured natural...