A British journalist watches a year turn in garden, orchard and wood
Phil Robinson’s 1897 essays follow the seasons, the birds and the other life of gardens, orchards and woods. A reader’s pencilled note on the title page points to Kipling’s mention of his brother Kay in Something of Myself.
The story
Phil Robinson was a British journalist who wrote about nature, and in these essays he takes the reader through three kinds of country: the garden, the orchard and the spinney, an English word for a small wood or thicket. He pairs a naturalist’s close watching in the field with the literary essay as the Victorians practised it.
The chapters follow the year as it turns, with the birds and the other creatures of tended ground and of the wilder land beyond it. The title page lists two of his earlier books, In My Indian Garden and Birds of the Wave and Woodland. This is a book to read a season at a time.
This copy has the New York imprint of E. P. Dutton and is dated 1897; the London edition from Isbister came out the same year. The brown cloth is rubbed at the edges and the front hinge is weakening. It was given as a Christmas present, apparently in 1936, and besides the Kipling note on the title page a reader has written out a passage headed ‘Old Year – New Year’; who wrote it, and whether it was copied from elsewhere, is not known.
Details
- Date
- 1897
- Publisher
- E. P. Dutton and Co., New York
- Binding
- cloth: Brown cloth gilt-lettered spine; no dust jacket visible
- Condition
- Brown cloth binding with rubbed spine ends and edges and evidence of weakening/separation at front hinge; scattered age toning. Pencil handwritten ownership and manuscript passages; binding and pagination require further check for complete collation.
- Inscription
- from Cousin Carrie / Christmas 1936 [tentative reading]
- Mark
- Title-page pencilled annotation: Kipling in 'Something of Myself' ... Stephen Wheeler's successor, Kay Robinson, brother of Phil Robinson, who wrote 'In My Indian Garden' [paraphrase; partial transcription].
- Mark
- Handwritten prose headed 'Old Year - New Year'; no author name visible; uncertain whether original or copied text.
