Jude Piesse has recently published a book about Darwin’s forgotten garden at The Mount, his boyhood home in Shrewsbury. Jude discovered the garden for herself by chance, after moving in next door to the site. While raising a young family, Jude spent time exploring The Mount; walking the pathways with a newborn, she traced the paths and re-imagined the garden in its heyday.

In this talk Jude explores not only the importance of gardens to Darwin (who never stopped thinking about The Mount and used garden imagery in On the Origin of Species) but gardens more generally. Gardens provide writers with unique opportunities to explore humanity’s relationship with nature. Join Jude for what is sure to be a thought-provoking hour.

Jude Piesse is a writer and academic who gained her degrees from the universities of Leeds, East Anglia, London and Exeter. Her first lectureship was in Shrewsbury – where she discovered Darwin’s childhood garden for herself – and she now works as a lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University.

Jude has published widely on nineteenth-century literary and culture, including her first book British Settlers Emigration in Print, 1832-1877. The Ghost in the Garden: In Search of Darwin’s Lost Garden, blends biography, nature writing and memoir.