Description
Jenny Joseph was no ordinary poet - and Led by the Nose is no ordinary memoir. Shaped around the smells of the English countryside, it is full of the wilful personality and the sly humour that characterised the purple-clad old woman in her iconic poem 'Warning'. Joseph's eccentricities permeate each chapter as she flows through the gardening year with its chores and blossoms, frequently leading the reader off the garden path to stop, smell the roses, and ignore the world for a while. Full of the sensual awareness of Jenny Joseph's poetry, Led by the Nose is a singular memoir: a work of delicious diversion and literary flair, horticultural anxieties and countercultural tendencies, providing a glimpse - or sniff - of the landscape of this treasured poet's life.
The unusual, remarkable memoir of a treasured British poet: Jenny Joseph, author of Warning: When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, presents a year in her garden - twelve months of musings, wisdom and scents
About the Author
Jenny Joseph was born in 1932 in Birmingham, England. She won a scholarship to read English literature at St Hilda's College, Oxford, coming top of her year. She published her first collection of poetry, The Unlooked-for Season, in 1960, which went on to win the Eric Gregory Award. Joseph's most famous poem, 'Warning: When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple', first appeared in her 1974 collection Rose in the Afternoon. It has remained popular ever since and was voted Britain's favourite modern poem in a 2006 BBC poll. In 1995 Joseph won the Forward Prize for her poem 'In Honour of Love' and her experimental fiction work Persephone won the 1986 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999. Jenny Joseph died in 2018, aged 85.
Reviews
A gardening book for the literary-minded. -- Woman's Hour * Radio 4 *
A treat for the sensual gardener. -- Alan Titchmarsh * Daily Express *
Led by the Nose looks and feels like the perfect present for a favourite gardening aunt. Small and chunky, beautifully illustrated with darkly floral woodcuts by Yvonne Skargon, it charts the changing seasons in Jenny Joseph's "rural slum" * Times Literary Supplement *
If you have had enough of gaudy melon flowers, try the poet Jenny Joseph's little paperback, Led by the Nose: A Garden of Smells. It will give you just the right shot of romantic Englishness as you sniff your way through the author's gardening year ... poetic, as you would expect from Joseph, but not soppy -- Stephen Anderton * The Times *
Combining the knowledge of a seasoned gardener with the writing power of a poet * Mail on Sunday *
You may not think that you know the work of Jenny Joseph, but you do. She is the author of 'Warning: When I am an old woman I shall wear purple' - once voted the nation's favourite poem and a worldwide bestseller. Now she has written this year's most unusual gardening book. * The Times *
This little book, covering a year in her own garden, is much more than an account of what borders she dug and when she planted her sweet peas ... the poet's sensitivity comes through in the details ... for those who want to evoke similar Proustian memories * Sunday Times *
This book would make a good present for a thoughtful, sensitive gardener, especially an elderly one who is tempted both to wear purple and to pick flowers in other people's gardens * Spectator *
Book Information
ISBN 9781800818125
Author Jenny Joseph
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Souvenir Press Ltd
Publisher Profile Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 168g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 18mm
The unusual, remarkable memoir of a treasured British poet: Jenny Joseph, author of Warning: When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, presents a year in her garden - twelve months of musings, wisdom and scents
About the Author
Jenny Joseph was born in 1932 in Birmingham, England. She won a scholarship to read English literature at St Hilda's College, Oxford, coming top of her year. She published her first collection of poetry, The Unlooked-for Season, in 1960, which went on to win the Eric Gregory Award. Joseph's most famous poem, 'Warning: When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple', first appeared in her 1974 collection Rose in the Afternoon. It has remained popular ever since and was voted Britain's favourite modern poem in a 2006 BBC poll. In 1995 Joseph won the Forward Prize for her poem 'In Honour of Love' and her experimental fiction work Persephone won the 1986 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999. Jenny Joseph died in 2018, aged 85.
Reviews
A gardening book for the literary-minded. -- Woman's Hour * Radio 4 *
A treat for the sensual gardener. -- Alan Titchmarsh * Daily Express *
Led by the Nose looks and feels like the perfect present for a favourite gardening aunt. Small and chunky, beautifully illustrated with darkly floral woodcuts by Yvonne Skargon, it charts the changing seasons in Jenny Joseph's "rural slum" * Times Literary Supplement *
If you have had enough of gaudy melon flowers, try the poet Jenny Joseph's little paperback, Led by the Nose: A Garden of Smells. It will give you just the right shot of romantic Englishness as you sniff your way through the author's gardening year ... poetic, as you would expect from Joseph, but not soppy -- Stephen Anderton * The Times *
Combining the knowledge of a seasoned gardener with the writing power of a poet * Mail on Sunday *
You may not think that you know the work of Jenny Joseph, but you do. She is the author of 'Warning: When I am an old woman I shall wear purple' - once voted the nation's favourite poem and a worldwide bestseller. Now she has written this year's most unusual gardening book. * The Times *
This little book, covering a year in her own garden, is much more than an account of what borders she dug and when she planted her sweet peas ... the poet's sensitivity comes through in the details ... for those who want to evoke similar Proustian memories * Sunday Times *
This book would make a good present for a thoughtful, sensitive gardener, especially an elderly one who is tempted both to wear purple and to pick flowers in other people's gardens * Spectator *
Book Information
ISBN 9781800818125
Author Jenny Joseph
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Souvenir Press Ltd
Publisher Profile Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 168g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 18mm
