Bringing to life the science and adventure of twenty-century plant collecting, The Garden of Eaton is the story of one artistic woman, now forgotten, as she visually describes each plant discovered by America’s botanists with color and water. This is her story of botanical adventures in England, Jamaica, and New York.
In this illuminating biography spanning the years 1870’s –1960’s, Susan Holland brings Mary Emily Eaton’s extraordinary life back into focus: her art training during the artistic tumult of British Arts and Crafts period; her daring expedition to the banana shipping culture of British Jamaica; her relationships with America’s leading figures, including Nathaniel Lord Britton of the New York Botanical Garden and his botanical staff, the Smithsonian, and the National Geographic Society; and her forgotten watercolor paintings housed in American and British natural history archives.
