GREEN RETREATS: Women, Gardens and Eighteenth-Century Culture.

First edition, first printing. Original black cloth lettered in gilt to the spine and front panel, in the dustwrapper reproducing a painting by Thomas Gainsborough. Illustrated throughout. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Light scratch to the rear panel. In the fine, unclipped dustwrapper. A lovely copy.

"Green Retreats presents a lively and beautifully illustrated account of eighteenth-century women in their gardens, in the context of the larger history of their retirement from the world – whether willed or enforced – and of their engagement with the literature of gardening. Beginning with a survey of cultural representations of the woman in the garden, Stephen Bending goes on to tell the stories, through their letters, diaries and journals, of some extraordinary eighteenth-century women including Elizabeth Montagu and the Bluestocking circle, the gardening neighbours Lady Caroline Holland and Lady Mary Coke, and Henrietta Knight, Lady Luxborough, renowned for her scandalous withdrawal from the social world." (from the jacket)