In a Strange Garden: The Life and Times of Truby King
Appendix Five: Truby King's library
Appendix Five: Truby King's library
The south-facing library at Melrose housed Truby's book collection. Central on the southern wall is a large window, fitted with a device to allow it to be lowered, for unobstructed viewing of the night sky. The manual lowering mechanism, comprising a crank handle and ratchet device in a cupboard below, does not appear in the original architect's plans, and would have been fitted at a later date. Around the panelled walls are bookshelves that in Truby's day would have overflowed.
Almost every topic is represented, from opera to classical mythology, all the great authors, many travel books, one New Testament and a child's Bible. There is no 'light' reading. The only novels are serious classics, and there are no books on sport.
The gardening library is an aid to the resurrection of the Melrose garden. As a snapshot of Edwardian gardening, it is remarkably complete and comprehensive:
Title | Author |
A Book of Gardening for Sub-Tropics | Stout |
A Book of Gardens | Waterford |
A Book of Old-World Gardens | Hyatt |
A Tour Round My Garden | Karr |
Alpine Flowers and Gardens | Flemwell |
Alpine Plants | Mansell |
Annuals and Biennials | Jekyllpage 237 |
Blacks Gardening Dictionary | Ellis |
Bricklaying | Forbes |
Bulb Gardening | Hampden |
Bulb Gardening | Macself |
California Fruits | Wickson |
Carnations and Pinks | Fletcher |
Chemistry of the Garden | Cousins |
Colour Schemes for Flower Gardens | Jekyll |
Cultivation of New Zealand Plants | Cockayne |
Decorative Plants and Trees | Fletcher |
Design in Landscape Gardening | Root |
Dry-Wall Gardens | Smith |
Elementary Chemistry of Agriculture | Woodhead |
Elements of Farming | McConnell |
Everyman's Book of Garden Flowers | Halsham |
Evolution of Plants | Scott |
Farm and Garden Rule Book | Brierley |
Farm Crops | Baskett |
Flower Culture | Hampden |
Flowering Trees and Shrubs | Macself |
French Gardening | Smith |
French Market Gardens | Weathers |
Fruit Trees and Grape Vine Pruning | Quinn |
Fundamentals of Fruit Production | Bradford & Hooker |
Fungus Pests of Fruit Trees | |
Garden Development | Henslow |
Garden Talks | Cram |
Garden Trees and Shrubs | Wright |
Gardening Don'ts | M.A. |
Gardening for the Ignorant | |
Gardens in the Making | |
Gladioli | Macself |
Greenhouse and Window Plants | Collins |
Greenhouse Construction | Taft |
Greenhouses, their Construction and Equipment | Wright |
Key to Australian Gardening | Searle |
Land Draining | Miles |
Lawns and Greens | Sanders |
Making a Bulb Garden | Tabor |
Making a Garden of Perennials | Egan |
Manual of Forestry | Schlich |
Manual of Practical Farming | McLennan |
Modern Culture of Sweet Peas | Stevenson |
My Garden of the Red Rose | Aitkenpage 238 |
New Rhubarb Culture | Morse |
Perpetual Carnations Illustrated | Cooke |
Planning and Planting of Little Gardens | Dillistone |
Plant Propagation | Kain |
Plants from Seed | Macself |
Practical Bricklaying | Briggs & Carwen |
Practical Bricklaying | Hammond |
Principles of Agriculture | Harrison |
Principles of Fruit Growing | Bailey |
Productive Vegetable Growing | Lloyd |
Propagation and Improvement of Cultivated Plants | Burb ridge |
Rational Fruit Culture | Davidson |
Rock Gardening | Tannock |
Rock Gardens | Jenkins |
Saturday in the Garden | Farthing |
Saxifrages | Jeremy & Malby |
Seeding and Planting in Forestry | Townley |
Select Extra-Tropical Plants | Mueller |
Shrubs for Amateurs | Bean |
Soils and Fertilisers | Macself |
Soils and Manures in New Zealand | Wilde |
Spirit of the Soil | Knox |
Spraying Crops | Spraying Crops |
Story of Plants | Duncan |
Strawberry Growing | Fletcher |
Sweet Peas | Junwin |
Sweet Peas | Wright |
Textbook of Pomology | Gourlay |
The Book of Asparagus | Ilott |
The Book of Bulbs | Arnott |
The Book of Hardy Flowers | Thomas |
The Book of the Scented Garden | Burbridge |
The Book of the Strawberry | |
The Bulb Book | Weathers |
The Children's Book of Gardening | Paynter |
The Complete Gardener | Thomas |
The Garden Library | Vines |
The Garden Under Glass | |
The Herbaceous Garden | Martineau |
The Potato | Grubb & Guildford |
The Secrets of Many Gardens | Macfarlane |
Tomato Culture | Tracy |
Tropical Agriculture | Wilcox |
Vegetable Gardening | Chisholmpage 239 |
Wayside and Woodland Trees | Step |
Wild Flowers at Home | Gowans and Gray |
Wood and Garden | Jekyll |