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Peter Martin: “From Sufficiency to Elegance: Gardening in Eighteenth-century Virginia”(1982)

  • MS 1993.8
  • 2 vols.

A working manuscript (first draft) compiled by Peter Martin, former member of Colonial Williamsburg’s Architectural Research staff and later professor of English at New England College in West Sussex, England, while conducting research on gardens in 18th-century Virginia. The manuscript includes chapters discussing Williamsburg gardens at the Governor’s Palace, as well as at the homes of Joseph Prentis, John Custis, and St. George Tucker. In addition, Martin discusses the gardens of William Byrd II at Westover, the influence of Mark Catesby, and theoretical and practical concerns which guided gardening in 18th-century Virginia. Material within this manuscript may have been incorporated into The Pleasure Gardens of Virginia: From Jamestown to Jefferson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). Martin is also the author of Pursuing Innocent Pleasures: The Gardening World of Alexander Pope and the editor of British and American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century: Eighteen Illustrated Essays on Garden History.

Inventory

Description Page Numbers
Folder 1
Volume I
Preface iii–vi
Contents vii–viii
List of Illustrations ix–xxi
Introduction xxii–xxxi
Chapter One: “Have you a Garden?” 1–15
Chapter Two: “So Fine a Country: Seventeenth-Century Virginia Plants and Gardens” 16–28
Folder 2
Chapter Three: “Gardening and the Enlightenment at Williamsburg: the College of William and Mary” 49–84
Chapter Four: “The Role of Gardens in the Creation and Development of Williamsburg” 85–116
Chapter Five: “The Governor’s Palace Gardens: ’lavishing away’ the Colony’s Money” 117–161
Chapter Six: “The Palace Gardens from Gooch to Jefferson” 162–176
Chapter Seven: “John Custis: the Fortunes and Mis-fortunes of an Early Transatlantic Gardener” 177–217
Folder 3
Chapter Eight: “Enter Mark Catesby” 218–230
Chapter Nine: “William Byrd II’s Westover Gardens” 231–288
Folder 4
Volume II
Chapter Ten: “Gardening in the ’Golden Age’ of Williamsburg” 289–364
Chapter Eleven: "The Peaceful Mansion of Green Hill: The Gardens
of Joseph Prentis"		 365–384
Chapter Twelve: “The Gardener Among His Friends: St. George Tucker’s Gardening in his ’Terrestial Paradise’ at Williamsburg” 385–417
Folder 5
Chapter Thirteen: “Virginian and Virgilian: ’Flowery Elysiums’ and Practical Gardening at the Plantations” 418–508
Epilogue 509
Folder 6
Notes 1–57
Illustrations
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