'Elysium Britannicum' or 'The Royal Gardens' was composed over a period of forty years, and Ingram's transcription reveals the challenge Evelyn faced in writing in - and for - a rapidly evolving intellectual culture. The work also displays many of Evelyn's own illustrations, including drawings of garden layouts, diagrams of inventions for plant and tree cultivation, and plans for the artificial and natural embellishment of the land, all of which were to contribute to the beauty and utility of the gardens.
John E. Ingram is Chair of the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections at the George A. Smathers Libraries of the University of Florida.
An extraordinary artefact.-Leo Carey, TLS "This book will give any attentive reader hours of delight... An enthralling work. It is so ambitious in scope, so delicious in its detail, so expressive of a now-vanished sensibility."-London Review of Books "The missing masterpiece of the literature of gardening."-New York Review of Books