Introduction by Alison Hardie

Preface to the First Edition

1. Western Reactions

2. The Origins of Gardens

3. Imperial Gardens

4. The Gardens of the Literati

5. The Painter's Eye

6. Architecture in Gardens

7. Rocks and Water

8. Flowers, Trees and Herbs

9. Meanings of the Chinese Garden by Charles Jencks

List of Gardens Accessible to Visitors in China

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Maggie Keswick was educated in Shanghai and Hong Kong and at Oxford University; she was married to the architectural critic and historian Charles Jencks, who contributed to this book.

Alison Hardie is a lecturer in Chinese studies at Newcastle University. She has done extensive research into Chinese gardens, specializing in Chinese garden design in the later Ming dynasty, and is translator of the classic Chinese garden text The Craft of Gardens (Yuan Ye) by Ji Cheng. She first met Maggie Keswick in China twenty years ago, and it was following Maggie's lead that she embarked on her study of Chinese gardens.