Book literary gardens 2026

Literary Gardens Course 2026

Literary Gardens

We will study gardens in some brilliant novels, short stories and poetry published between 1865 and 1922, from Alice in Wonderland to The Waste Land. All these remarkable works are fascinated with gardens. Why are gardens important – how are they represented, and what do they mean across these works?

Set Reading

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872)
Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and her German Garden (1898).
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911)
Katherine Mansfield short stories, including ‘The Garden Party’ (1922) in Mansfield, Collected Stories
Virginia Woolf, ‘Kew Gardens’ (short story, 1919); further reading ‘A Sketch of the Past’ (essay)
H.D., Sea Garden (1916) and T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922), esp. ‘Burial of the Dead’.

Six two-hourly sessions, January–March 2026, live online via Zoom. Places are limited.

With Dr Karina Jakubowicz

Click on image below for booking page.