Posts Tagged ‘literary history’
A Gentle Voice from the Garden: Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. November 8, 1922 On this day, as the last mountain ash berries gleam against pewter skies, we remember Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald, whose poetic voice still echoes through the gardens of Maritime Canada. Today…
Read MoreNicolas Boileau-Despréaux: The Critic’s Garden at Auteuil
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. November 1, 1636 Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (pronounced “nee-koh-LAH bwah-LOH day-pray-OH”) was born on this day in Paris. Boileau was a French poet and critic whose garden became a sanctuary for some of the greatest…
Read MoreThe Gardener’s Pen: Remembering Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. October 31, 1852 On this day, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, one of America’s most remarkable chroniclers of New England garden life, was born in Randolph, Massachusetts. ]Though primarily known for her fiction, Freeman’s…
Read MoreMark Twain’s Literary Garden: Where Wit Bloomed in an Octagonal Shed
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. November 30, 1835 On this day, dear readers and fellow gardeners, a most extraordinary seed was planted in the fertile soil of American literature. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, destined to bloom into the incomparable…
Read MorePruning Words: Matsuo Basho and the Art of Haiku
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. November 28, 1694 On this day, the garden of Japanese poetry lost one of its most exquisite blooms. Matsuo Basho, the master gardener of haiku, breathed his last, leaving behind a legacy as…
Read MoreFrom Shelf to Soul: Stefan Zweig’s Blooming Legacy
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. November 28, 1881 On this day, a literary seed was planted that would grow into one of the most prolific and widely-read authors of the early 20th century. Stefan Zweig, the Austrian writer…
Read MoreAngels in the Garden: Wilson Rawls and the Mythical Red Fern
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. September 24, 1913 My fellow seekers of garden lore and literary magic, on this day, we celebrate the birth of Wilson Rawls, a man who gave us perhaps the most enigmatic plant in…
Read MoreFrom Bluebells to Winter Roses: The Life of Anne Brontë
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. May 28, 1849 Dear reader, on this day in history, we bid farewell to a literary gem, the English novelist and poet Anne Brontë. While we now celebrate the Brontë sisters for their…
Read MoreThoreau and the Art of Seeing: Garden Wisdom from Walden
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. August 9, 1854 My darling green-thumbed companions, it was on this day in 1854 that two years of transcendental communion with nature near Walden Pond in Massachusetts was shared with the world in…
Read MoreFlowers Instead of Stones: Daniel Defoe’s Unusual Day in the Pillory
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. July 31, 1703 On this day, dear garden friends, the indomitable Daniel Defoe was made to stand in the pillory in front of the Temple Bar – a spectacle that would have delighted…
Read MoreSamuel Taylor Coleridge: The Poet Who Planted Romantic Seeds
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. July 25, 1834 On this day, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge departed from this mortal garden at the age of sixty-one, leaving behind a landscape of verse that would bloom in perpetuity…
Read MoreGeorge William Russell: The Departed Poet Who Understood Gardeners’ Souls
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. July 17, 1935 On this day, dear readers, we bade adieu to a luminous soul. The poet George William Russell, known more intimately to the literary world as AE, has departed this earthly…
Read MoreThe Secret Garden of George Orwell
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. June 25, 1903 On this day, the incomparable George Orwell made his entrance into our world – a man whose pen would later carve truths into the collective consciousness of society with such…
Read MoreFlowers of Freedom: How Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Floral Symbolism Changed America
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. June 14, 1811 On this day, Harriet Beecher Stowe made her entrance into this world—a woman whose pen would later wield more power than many a general’s sword. Though diminutive in stature, her…
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