A Garden of Herbs

"A Garden of Herbs, first published in 1920, was presented as a small handbook for anyone interested in growing and using herbs as they had been generations before. Rohde hoped that herbs would once again be more widely grown, and she believed that even a small city or suburban garden provided the opportunity to recreate a version of the old-fashioned herb garden.

It begins with some examples of knot garden designs and then presents individual profiles of over seventy herbs - some that are familiar as well as some that are rarely grown in our gardens or used in the kitchen anymore. Also included are five chapters of recipes for soups and salads, drinks and desserts, perfumed waters, powders and pomanders - and more, gleaned from old stillroom books, age-old herbals and a wealth of other historical books and manuscripts noted in the bibliography.

But A Garden of Herbs is more than a guide to reviving the historic herb garden. Perhaps most importantly, it serves as a reminder of the long history and essentialness of our connection to plants-and an inspiration to find new ways to incorporate their beautiful and nourishing influences into everyday existence.

You may never be able to pay your rent with roses (at a rate of twenty bushels, plus a single red rose; refer to page 95) or satisfy the very particular requirements for concocting an eye ointment that would enable you to see fairies (page 133), but you can imagine and by imagining perpetuate the culture of herbs. This new edition of Eleanour Sinclair Rohde's classic book reproduces the original text unabridged.

Illustrations have been added to chapter headings, formatting and punctuation have been adjusted, and some spelling changes and other copy edits have been made for consistency and in keeping with contemporary usage.

The index has also been edited.

We hope these mild changes add to the reader's enjoyment of A Garden of Herbs"-- Provided by publisher.