Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence--A Friendship in Letters
In 1958 White, wife of the essayist E.B. White, published the first of many horticultural articles in the New Yorker, where she had been an editor for years. It was a critique of the catalogues from which she ordered seeds, bulbs and plants for the gardens around her house in North Brooklin, Maine. It prompted Lawrence, a noted garden writer in Charlotte, N.C., to send a fan letter recommending other catalogues for the author to look into. White gratefully wrote back, and thus began a friendship by mail that lasted until White's death in 1977. Because White often asked for advice about books, catalogues and plants, there is a good deal of gardening information in these 160 letters. Mutual encouragement is a major theme. White praises Lawrence's books, Southern Gardening and The Little Bulb Book, and in her last letter claims to have learned almost everything she knows about horticulture from Lawrence. Though somewhat in awe of the older, more famous woman, Lawrence doesn't hesitate to act as her teacher. Mixed in are accounts of their daily lives, bits of family history and news of Lawrence's aged mother and White's grandchildren. These graceful letters by two women well-known in the gardening world are a joy to read. The book is nicely assembled by Wilson (Hope and Dignity: Older Black Women of the South), whose footnotes are informative but unobtrusive. Photos.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.