Back in print after 150 years
Out of print since 1856,
The American Gardener
is perhaps the first classic work of American gardening literature. In it, William Cobbett, Victorian England’s greatest and most gifted journalist, draws upon his experiences during a two-year exile on a Long Island, New York, farm to lay out the rudiments of gardening for American farmers and, ultimately, to tailor principles developed in wet, drippy, weed-prone British gardens to their fine, sun-drenched counterparts in America. Full of practical knowledge memorably imparted with Cobbett’s gift for the indelible phrase,
offers advice still useful today on all aspects of gardening, with special attention to those plants successful in the New World, including the artichoke (“indeed, a thistle upon a gigantic scale”) and the increasingly ubiquitous potato. Rediscovered 180 years after its composition,
is evidence of a great mind and pen at work in the earliest days of American gardens.
This Modern Library edition is published with a new Introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a
New York Times
editorialist and the author of
The Rural Life
,
Making Hay
, and
The Last Fine Time
.