Book review: The Ghost in the Garden
The Ghost in the Garden. In Search of Darwin’s Lost Garden By Jude Piesse
The Ghost in the Garden is a fresh perspective of Charles Darwin told through the lens of “The Mount”, the seven acre estate where Darwin was born and spent his childhood up to the age of 16.
Jude Piesse was motivated to write The Ghost in the Garden when she moved in nearby to the now much changed and largely forgotten remanet of The Mount due to a teaching assignment. The book is actually several elements woven together. It is in part a historical story of Darwin and his family’s ties to the Mount, the story of the estate land and of society during Darwin’s era (raising class comparisons of the life of the Darwin’s with the lives of those in nearby slum town). It also tells the contemporary personal story of Piesse’s day-to-day family life centred around her research of The Mount garden and Darwin’s relationship to it. Towards conclusion of the book, Piesse also ties the narrative of the Mount back to current global environmental challenges highlighting the interconnectivity of nature.
The Mount was Darwin’s first experience with nature and where he initially learnt about the complex relationships between flowers and other plants, birds and small animals. The Ghost in the Garden covers in some detail how important his independent sisters and mother (Susannah Wedgewood) were in teaching him gardening and shaping his broader perspectives of nature – and ultimately his theory of evolution.
Piesse links several of Darwin’s key books and theories to back his time at the Mount - such as the impact of his mother’s pigeons which he used as a key example of evolution in the Origin of Species. His close relationship to his sisters at The Mount resulted to the diary which formed a key basis for his book The Voyage of the Beagle. Despite the excitement of discovery during Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle he clearly missed his home and garden at the Mount; “I often think of the Garden at home as a Paradise”.
The Ghost in the Garden reimagines the garden and family life as it must have been with its flower beds, ferns, hothouse pineapples, vinery and a “Thinking Path”. It is clear that Darwin had a real affection for The Mount and he continued to visit regularly up until his father’s death in 1848, and after that time once his sister Susan took over management of The Mount property.
There are a number of interesting stories and facts are sprinkled throughout the book. For example, when Darwin was alive, his last book Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action of Worms with Observations of Their Habits sold faster than his most famous book The Origin of Species. His worm’s book, as it turns out helped formulate a lot of our knowledge of the importance of earthworms in decomposing plant matter and creating good soils.
Overall, The Ghost in the Garden should have been a great book but in reality, the end result was a little disappointing. An interesting concept, it seemed to lack the substance to justify a complete book on such a narrow aspect of Darwin’s life. The story of Piesse’s personal life was also at times a distraction.
This felt a bit like a Covid era book – a book project primarily written and edited during this period – while with a broader concept and more research it could have been a more compelling book. It did however increase my interest in reading about Darwin generally and I have since gone and got a copy of Voyage of the Beagle.
@ Black Teal Bay Rating: 6.5/10
