John Evelyn : a life of domesticity / John Dixon Hunt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hunt, John Dixon, author.

Series:

Renaissance lives.

Renaissance lives

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Evelyn, John, 1620-1706.

Evelyn, John.

Gardeners--Great Britain--Biography.

Gardeners.

Authors--Biography.

Authors.

Great Britain--History--Stuarts, 1603-1714.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (328 pages) : illustrations.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London, UK : Reaktion Books, 2017.

Summary:

The great English writer and gardener John Evelyn (1620-1706) kept a diary all his life. Today, this diary is considered an invaluable source of information on more than fifty years of social, cultural, religious, and political life in seventeenth-century England. Evelyn's work is often overshadowed by the literary contributions of his contemporary and friend, Samuel Pepys. This new biography changes that.John Dixon Hunt takes a fresh look at the life and work of one of England's greatest diarists, focusing particularly on Evelyn's "domesticity." The book explores Evelyn's life at home, and perhaps even more importantly, his domestication of foreign ideas and practices in England. During the English Civil Wars, Evelyn traveled extensively throughout Europe, taking in ideas on the management of estate design while abroad to apply them in England. Evelyn's greatest accomplishment was the import of European garden art to the UK, a feat Hunt puts into context alongside a range of Evelyn's social and ethical thinking. Illustrated with visual material from Evelyn's time and from his own pen, the book is an ideal introduction to a hugely important figure in the shaping of early modern Britain.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Imprint Page

Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Domesticity

2. Early Life in England

3. 'The fruit of travel': Continental Europe, 1641 and 1643-7

4. Marriage, and the Interregnum

5. Sayes Court

6. The Restoration

7. The 'Georgical' Committee

8. Work as a Civil Servant

9. Ancient and Modern in Architecture and Gardening

10. 'Elysium Britannicum'

11. Last Decades of the Seventeenth Century

12. At Last: Wotton, 'reckon'd among the fairest of Surrey'

Postscript

Chronology and Major Publications

References

Further Reading

Acknowledgements

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781780238708

1780238703