A companion to Midway, this is the second volume of letters of Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006), the leading Scottish poet, artist, sculptor, and garden designer. His garden at Stonypath, now called Little Sparta has been described as the only truly original garden created since 1945. These letters to and from Finlay's friend, the English poet and scholar Stephen Bann, center on the initial development of the garden near Edinburgh. They cover Finlay's turn away from poetry towards sculpture and garden design and the thinking behind, and consequences of, this development.

The extravagant gardens of the 16th- and 17th-century British aristocracy are well-documented and celebrated, but the more modest gardens of the rural county gentry have rarely been examined. Jill Francis presents new, never-before published material as well as fresh interpretations of previously examined sources to reveal gardening as a practical activity in which a broad spectrum of society was engaged - from the laborers who dug, manured, and weeded, to the gentleman owners who sought to create gardens that both exemplified their personal tastes and displayed their wealth and status. Enhanced by beautiful and compelling illustrations, this book contributes to a broader understanding of early modern society and its culture by situating the activity of gardening within the wider social and cultural concerns of the age, reflecting the anxieties, hopes, and aspirations of people at the time. Published in association with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art