Chinese Garden Pleasures: An Appreciation

Featuring beautiful photographs and insightful commentary this Chinese gardening book is a must have for any gardening or zen enthusiast.

Celebrating the pleasures of garden living enjoyed by the elite of late imperial China, this book brings together poetry, prose, paintings and prints from imperial China to show the many facets of life and leisure in the Chinese garden. From music to lanterns, from chess to drama, all kinds of cultural activities could be enjoyed in a garden setting, alone or with friends and family. Here, too, the garden owner and his or her companions could appreciate the changing seasons with all their variety of scent, sound and colorful blossom. No wonder that dwelling in a garden was often compared to the carefree life of a Taoist immortal.

Chinese Garden Appreciation, compiled by a leading expert in Chinese garden history, incorporates many original translations of classical Chinese poetry and prose.

Alison Hardie holds degrees in Classics from the University of Oxford and in Chinese from the University of Edinburgh, and a doctorate in the history of Chinese garden design from the University of Sussex. Her main research interest is in the social and cultural history of early modern China. She is the translator of Ji Cheng’s 17th-century garden manual, The Craft of Gardens (1988, repr. 2012), and revised the 3rd edition of Maggie Keswick’s The Chinese Garden: History, Art and Architecture (2003). She has published many translations and articles on Chinese garden history for both academic and general readers and frequently gives lectures in the UK and USA on Chinese gardens. She is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds, UK.