Molly Peacock, author of The Paper Garden, on tour May 2012

About The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (April 24, 2012)

A beautifully written biography from an internationally acclaimed poet, The Paper Garden is at once the story of an extraordinary eighteenth-century woman and a “graceful meditation on botany, nature, life and age” (New York Times Book Review).

In 1772, upon the death of her second husband, Mary Delany arose from her grief, picked up a pair of scissors, and, at the age of seventy-two, created a new art form: mixed-media collage. Over the next decade, Mrs. Delany produced an astonishing 985 botanically correct, breathtaking cut-paper flowers, now housed in the British Museum and referred to as the Flora Delanica. As she tracks the extraordinary life of Delany—friend of George Frideric Handel and Jonathan Swift—internationally acclaimed poet Molly Peacock weaves in delicate parallels in her own life and, in doing so, creates a profound and beautiful examination of the nature of creativity and art. This gorgeously designed book, featuring thirty-five full-color illustrations, is to be devoured as voraciously as one of the court dinners it describes.

Praise for The Paper Garden:

“Delany’s story abounds with energy as Peacock brings her alive. Like her glorious multilayered collages, Delany is so vivid a character she almost jumps from the page.”—New York Times Book Review

“A beautifully designed, eye-catching book … [The Paper Garden] is a celebration of second chances and the possibility—so attractive to those of a certain age—of an unexpected blossoming late in life … Here, then, is not only an introduction to a unique artist, but also a whole bouquet of thoughts and observations about the flow of life.”—Washington Post

“Physically beautiful and emotionally transporting … A sumptuous bounty of gorgeous words, striking mosaics and a spirit of joy.”—Chicago Tribune

To learn more about The Paper Garden, please visit the book’s website HERE.

Read an excerpt of The Paper Garden HERE.

“An intriguing, evocative aesthetic experience. A lyrical, meditative rumination on art and the blossoming beauty of self that can be the gift of age and love.” —Kirkus Reviews

About Molly Peacock

Molly Peacock is the award-winning author of five volumes of poetry, including The Second Blush. Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and the Times Literary Supplement. Among her other works are How to Read a Poem . . . and Start a Poetry Circle and a memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece. Peacock is currently the poetry editor of the Literary Review of Canada and the general series editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English. A transplanted New Yorker, she lives in Toronto.