Elizabeth Jane Howard, acclaimed author of the Cazalet Chronicles, once said that she would certainly have been a gardener had she not become a writer first. In Green Shades: An Anthology of Plants, Gardens and Gardeners, she brings together a diverse and fascinating selection of garden writing that spans the centuries, the seasons and the species. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics with ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. The contents are delightfully eclectic and wide-ranging, practical as well as lyrical – she pays homage to the great English landscape artists of the eighteenth century and to the great women gardeners such as Vita Sackville-West. There’s advice from Pliny on how walnuts can be used to dye hair and Joseph Addison encourages blackbirds to gorge on his cherry trees. Linking the numerous extracts is Elizabeth Jane Howard’s perceptive and highly personal commentary, which skilfully leads the reader from one subject to the next.

A lovely gift for a garden lover, [Elizabeth Jane Howard's] talent seemed so effervescent, so unstoppable, that there was no predicting where it might take her.

The late Elizabeth Jane Howard was the author of fifteen highly acclaimed novels. The Cazalet Chronicles – The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change – have become established as modern classics and have been adapted for a major BBC television series and for BBC Radio 4. In 2002 Macmillan published Elizabeth Jane Howard’s autobiography, Slipstream. In that same year she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. She died, aged ninety, at home in Suffolk on 2 January 2014.